The Iraq thread 4

[EiZei 0]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....s_death

Quote[/b] ]

AP: Iraqi Died While Hanging by His Wrists

Fri Feb 18,10:38 AM ET

By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO - An Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib died under CIA (news - web sites) interrogation while in a position condemned by human rights groups as torture — suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back, according to reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

[sputnik monroe 102]

Propaganda? I thought propaganda was used to raise morale, I haven't seen or heard a single positive report in the news about anything this year. How can that be propaganda?

    Any news channel if you tune in (including Fox) you basically get this  "In mid east news, US forces are losing the war in Iraq and millions are dead and we can't win and it's all Americas fault and man every one should rise up and kill an American oh and guess what my dog has bad breath, reason? American presence in Iraq silly. New poll shows %99 of American soldiers will die this year. 7 billion people were bombed today in Iraq by a red neck yank in an F16 while high on various drugs including Crack,opium, PCP, and crystal meth. The French don't like us and Denoir doesn't either (yes you made the news) and the death toll in Iraq has climbed since this braodcast began. 3 soldiers died in operations in Tikrit today making it the bloodiest battle in the history of mankind. The president stuttered today which according to an ivy league college proffesor is solid proof that he suffers from massive mental retardation. Michael Moore released a book today that is full of nothing but the truth buy it or your a loser and guess what Alec Baldwin hates every one even his dog so screw you oh yeah and last night a US service man was arrested on DUI charges in the middle of a back country road in the middle of Kentucky. Said one expert "this is definitive proof that all American soldiers are jack booted scum bags out to eat your children and destroy your way of life. North Korea needs bombed says Democratic senator from laskdfja;sdg AAAAAARGH!

     And that's just five minutes. I swear if it's truly propaganda then I'm questioning who's side it's promoting. After I watch the news I feel incredibly suicidal.

[EiZei 0]

Propaganda? I thought propaganda was used to raise morale, I haven't seen or heard a single positive report in the news about anything this year. How can that be propaganda?

Any news channel if you tune in (including Fox) you basically get this "In mid east news, US forces are losing the war in Iraq and millions are dead and we can't win and it's all Americas fault and man every one should rise up and kill an American oh and guess what my dog has bad breath, reason? American presence in Iraq silly. New poll shows %99 of American soldiers will die this year. 7 billion people were bombed today in Iraq by a red neck yank in an F16 while high on various drugs including Crack,opium, PCP, and crystal meth. The French don't like us and Denoir doesn't either (yes you made the news) and the death toll in Iraq has climbed since this braodcast began. 3 soldiers died in operations in Tikrit today making it the bloodiest battle in the history of mankind. The president stuttered today which according to an ivy league college proffesor is solid proof that he suffers from massive mental retardation. Michael Moore released a book today that is full of nothing but the truth buy it or your a loser and guess what Alec Baldwin hates every one even his dog so screw you oh yeah and last night a US service man was arrested on DUI charges in the middle of a back country road in the middle of Kentucky. Said one expert "this is definitive proof that all American soldiers are jack booted scum bags out to eat your children and destroy your way of life. North Korea needs bombed says Democratic senator from laskdfja;sdg AAAAAARGH!

And that's just five minutes. I swear if it's truly propaganda then I'm questioning who's side it's promoting. After I watch the news I feel incredibly suicidal.

How silly of me to expect you to reply with anything besides semi-demented rants.

[billybob2002 0]

Propaganda? I thought propaganda was used to raise morale, I haven't seen or heard a single positive report in the news about anything this year. How can that be propaganda?

    Any news channel if you tune in (including Fox) you basically get this  "In mid east news, US forces are losing the war in Iraq and millions are dead and we can't win and it's all Americas fault and man every one should rise up and kill an American oh and guess what my dog has bad breath, reason? American presence in Iraq silly. New poll shows %99 of American soldiers will die this year. 7 billion people were bombed today in Iraq by a red neck yank in an F16 while high on various drugs including Crack,opium, PCP, and crystal meth. The French don't like us and Denoir doesn't either (yes you made the news) and the death toll in Iraq has climbed since this braodcast began. 3 soldiers died in operations in Tikrit today making it the bloodiest battle in the history of mankind. The president stuttered today which according to an ivy league college proffesor is solid proof that he suffers from massive mental retardation. Michael Moore released a book today that is full of nothing but the truth buy it or your a loser and guess what Alec Baldwin hates every one even his dog so screw you oh yeah and last night a US service man was arrested on DUI charges in the middle of a back country road in the middle of Kentucky. Said one expert "this is definitive proof that all American soldiers are jack booted scum bags out to eat your children and destroy your way of life. North Korea needs bombed says Democratic senator from laskdfja;sdg AAAAAARGH!

     And that's just five minutes. I swear if it's truly propaganda then I'm questioning who's side it's promoting. After I watch the news I feel incredibly suicidal.

How silly of me to expect you to reply with anything besides semi-demented rants.

Quote[/b] ]Main Entry: pro·pa·gan·da

Pronunciation: "prä-p&-'gan-d&, "prO-

Function: noun

Etymology: New Latin, from Congregatio de propaganda fide Congregation for propagating the faith, organization established by Pope Gregory XV died 1623

1 capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions

2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person

3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

Also, sarcasm... So how is the media pro-US propaganda with it's reporting of death of americans and etc... Even Fox News doesn't fall under the definition.

[ralphwiggum 6]

.      Oh yeah Fox news they are so biased and awful. You should get your news from real fair and unbiased news sources like say Al-Jazeera and CNN.

   I seriously laugh out loud every time I read a post on this board containing the old "Fox is bad" cliché that usually follows up in the same breath  with "read my hot linked NYtimes article."  It's a hoot it really is.

     Face it you guys hate Fox because you were told to hate Fox news.  When it all comes down to it, Fox news isn't any more or less biased than any other "news" organization.

     I think the main reason Fox gets slammed so much is because they have a handful of right wing commentators, most notably Sean Hannity (who is balanced out by Alan Colmes). They have two other guys but I can't remember their names.  If they refused to have any right wing commentary programs and only showed left wing ones like every one else they would be accepted by the public as a whole.

      I find it difficult to believe that any of you can honestly claim CNN for example is an unbiased news source. Can you name me one right wing commentator on their channel? Hell any channel? The only one I can think of is that Scarborough guy on MSNBC. I can name hundreds of left wing commentators though.

     All that said I’m not a big Fox fan. I channel surf through all the news channels I have.  I just find it amusing how people have this rabid hatred of Fox news when the only thing different about Fox is the fact that it sort of isn’t an echo chamber (there are a few non left wing host on it).

and why is this your SECOND post about media bias, only after someone joked about Faux media?

seems like you have some sort of trigger mechanism in works as soon as someone mentions negative thing about Faux.

of course, you claim to be against all bias, but your rant is more about "liberal media", which was not the subject of dicussion.

[sputnik monroe 102]

Because I'm sick of how every one seems to think that Fox is the anti christ. I'm tired of hearing peoples programmed attitudes about Fox.

  My question for you is, why does every one have a hard on for bashing Fox? I really see no difference from Fox and the other networks save for the fact that they dared to have a few right wing commentary shows. Every time I ask the question "why" I get BS statistics from left wing sites that obviously have an agenda. Just for once I would like to get a reason from some one that doesn't boil down to " I'm I liberal and liberals are told not to watch Fox because Fox is EEeeEEvill". Hell I'll accept " Because Geraldo has a show on it and I think he's an ass.".

   I honestly believe every one bashes it because they are told to. You would not believe how many people I encounter in my day to day business who bash Fox news, and they don't even have access to cable to begin with.

Quote[/b] ]seems like you have some sort of trigger mechanism in works as soon as someone mentions negative thing about Faux.

 

    As you (and others like you) seem to have a trigger mechanism that snaps into "Fox must die" mode any time some one mentions an article by Fox news.

[ralphwiggum 6]

let me show you the events in sequence.

daddl:Who can spot the contradiction?

avon:man-kind.

then you posted your media bias post.

I'm also wondering why you never post anything about programmed response to CNN, ABC, CBS and so on, but you don't mind complaining about "programmed response" to Faux

here's today's foxnews.com frontpage.

first, look at the way they describe Michale Jackson. Although he is not liked by many, using the term 'Jacko' doesn't portray Fox as a respectable media.

a few articles below, there is a link to '911 professor', Ward Churchill. He became notorious after someone decided to take some words out of his paper 2 yrs ago. Not surprisingly, righwing all got into this frenzy of call for resignation. So much for free speech. He was almost nobody until rightwing news decided to talk about him, which inevitably backfired and made him more famous.

below that is advertisement for Ann Coulter. Fox not only has 'some number of rightwing commentators', but is actively advertising books by a renown rightwing nut.

below that is a section called 'Only on Fox', which would imply that this is the type of news Fox is interested in doing.

first article: 'Political tone in Hollywood'

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,148108,00.html

and read Eizie's post above. seems like you want to avoid facing the fact

[theavonlady 2]

let me show you the events in sequence.

daddl:Who can spot the contradiction?

avon:man-kind.

Gee...................

Look what I started!

[Acecombat 0]

Sputnik take heart in knowing that Fox isnt the one thats hated worldwide by everyone infact its Al-Jazeera , yes OFFICIALLY theres no one out there who likes the damn channel , US thinks its crap and conservative muslim propaganda , conservative muslims and AQ and gang have labelled it as a US interests serving media outlet in other words their muppet. Atleast Fox has a following among the conservative US folks .

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]a few articles below, there is a link to '911 professor', Ward Churchill. He became notorious after someone decided to take some words out of his paper 2 yrs ago. Not surprisingly, righwing all got into this frenzy of call for resignation. So much for free speech. He was almost nobody until rightwing news decided to talk about him, which inevitably backfired and made him more infamous.

Fixed. He is just a hypocrite that using tax dollars talking about technocrats and crap. How does it make him famous? He bs about his native background (i'm apart of a tribe that allows everybody to join) and his credentials are now in question (how he became head of "ethics" board).

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]a few articles below, there is a link to '911 professor', Ward Churchill. He became notorious after someone decided to take some words out of his paper 2 yrs ago. Not surprisingly, rightwing all got into this frenzy of call for resignation. So much for free speech. He was almost nobody until rightwing news decided to talk about him, which inevitably backfired and made him more infamous.

Fixed. He is just a hypocrite that using tax dollars talking about technocrats and crap. How does it make him famous? He bs about his native background (i'm apart of a tribe that allows everybody to join) and his credentials are now in question (how he became head of "ethics" board).

Thanks for proving his point.

The issue has been blown way out of proportion byt he media in general, especially coming on the heels of the head of Harvard's gaffe. The media likes to grab "grouped stories" (much like Hollywood). This week it is just college professors and how far the 1st Amendment goes.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]a few articles below, there is a link to '911 professor', Ward Churchill. He became notorious after someone decided to take some words out of his paper 2 yrs ago. Not surprisingly, rightwing all got into this frenzy of call for resignation. So much for free speech. He was almost nobody until rightwing news decided to talk about him, which inevitably backfired and made him more infamous.

Fixed. He is just a hypocrite that using tax dollars talking about technocrats and crap. How does it make him famous? He bs about his native background (i'm apart of a tribe that allows everybody to join) and his credentials are now in question (how he became head of "ethics" board).

Thanks for proving his point.  

The issue has been blown way out of proportion byt he media in general, especially coming on the heels of the head of Harvard's gaffe. The media likes to grab "grouped stories" (much like Hollywood). This week it is just college professors and how far the 1st Amendment goes.

Is he not a hypocrite? I can't say that...

[ralphwiggum 6]

Quote[/b] ]a few articles below, there is a link to '911 professor', Ward Churchill. He became notorious after someone decided to take some words out of his paper 2 yrs ago. Not surprisingly, righwing all got into this frenzy of call for resignation. So much for free speech. He was almost nobody until rightwing news decided to talk about him, which inevitably backfired and made him more infamous.

Fixed. He is just a hypocrite that using tax dollars talking about technocrats and crap. How does it make him famous? He bs about his native background (i'm apart of a tribe that allows everybody to join) and his credentials are now in question (how he became head of "ethics" board).

ah, finally showing your color....maybe hellokitty sigs on occassion might do good.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/19/iraq.main/index.html

Quote[/b] ]BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- On a day when bombers in Iraq launched attacks that killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 100, Iraqi police announced the arrest of a man they say is linked to terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Iraqi police arrested Haidar Mulaqatah during a raid in the Maffaraq area of western Baquba, about 30 miles north of Baghdad in Diyala province. The area has been a frequent site for insurgent attacks against coalition troops and Iraqi security forces.

Police said they also found weapons, including mortars, and equipment used to make counterfeit identification during the raid.

In another raid near Mosul on Saturday, Iraqi security forces captured another suspected insurgent.

Harbi Abdul Khudier Hammudi, who served as a colonel in the old Iraqi air force, is a leader of the Salafist Jihadist terrorist group and is believed to have been involved in several attacks against coalition forces, including the bombing of an Iraqi national guard convoy last year, police said.

Another leader in Hammudi's group, Faris Addula Younis, was also captured in the raid, police said.

The bombings in and around Baghdad -- coinciding with the celebration of Ashura, one of the holiest days on the Shiite calendar -- came a day after a flurry of similar violence that killed 31 people.

Thousands of Shiites took to the streets in Baghdad and Karbala to commemorate the day, which marks the death of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.

The attacks are the latest examples of sectarian violence aimed at Shiites, who make up the majority of the population in Iraq. The Shiite-backed United Iraqi Alliance won a plurality of votes in the National Assembly elections held January 30.

Sunnis dominated the government under Saddam Hussein's regime, and many boycotted the assembly elections.

A flurry of attacks occurred in Baghdad, according to U.S. and Iraqi authorities, and coincided with a visit by a bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators, including John McCain of Arizona and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who have often challenged the Pentagon's planning and management of the Iraq war.

<snip>

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]ah, finally showing your color....maybe hellokitty sigs on occassion might do good.

I hate hellokitty...

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]Is he not a hypocrite? I can't say that...

What is he a "hypocrite" about?

[theavonlady 2]

Good morning, Hillary!

Quote[/b] ]Sen. Clinton Says Iraq Insurgents Failing

Updated 4:06 PM ET February 19, 2005

By TODD PITMAN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - As 55 people died in Iraq on Saturday, the holiest day on the Shiite Muslim religious calendar, Sen. Hillary Clinton said that much of Iraq was "functioning quite well" and that the rash of suicide attacks was a sign that the insurgency was failing.

Clinton, a New York Democrat, said insurgents intent on destabilizing the country had failed to disrupt Iraq's landmark Jan. 30 elections.

"The concerted effort to disrupt the elections was an abject failure. Not one polling place was shut down or overrun," Clinton told reporters inside the U.S.-protected Green Zone, a sprawling complex of sandbagged buildings surrounded by blast walls and tanks. The zone is home to the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy.

The five-member U.S. Congressional delegation arrived in Baghdad as a series of suicide bombings and explosions killed 55 people, including an American solder. Much of the violence was aimed at Shiite Muslims, commemorating Ashoura, the festival marking the death of the founder of their sect 14 centuries ago.

"The fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure," Clinton said.

The senate delegation included Republicans John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold.

All but Feingold are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees the defense department budget.

Clinton said the last time she visited Iraq in late 2003, she traveled to the Green Zone by road from the international airport.

Today, security is so bad that none of the senators dared drive through Baghdad's streets, even in armored cars. Aside from the Green Zone, their only glimpse of the capital came from the relative safety of U.S. military helicopters that ferried them from the airport.

"It's regrettable that the security needs have increased so much. On the other hand, I think you can look at the country as a whole and see that there are many parts of Iraq that are functioning quite well," Clinton said.

Collins, who last visited Iraq in mid-2003, said the increased violence was "disappointing."

A year and-a-half ago, "we were able to move more freely in Baghdad," she said. "And one impression I have is how much more fortified Baghdad is than it was during that summer."

But Collins said much had been achieved since then, above all, the June handover of sovereignty from U.S. authorities to Iraq's interim government.

On Sunday, the senators will visit U.S. troops in other parts of Iraq.

McCain said his delegation met Saturday with Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, and Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who is leading the American push to train Iraqi security forces so U.S. can eventually leave.

Clinton and McCain have often challenged the Pentagon's planning and its management of the Iraq war.

"I've said many times that we've made serious mistakes and we've paid a very heavy price for those mistakes," McCain said.

"We have a long, hard, difficult struggle ahead of us, but I'm far more optimistic than I was before the election, because the Iraqi people proved that they would brave the risk of their very lives in order to choose their government," he said. "To me, that's very encouraging."

Graham said the U.S. military was unlikely to withdraw anytime soon.

"The one thing I've learned from this trip is that we're a long way away from being able to leave. That is, if the Iraqi people want us to stay, we're gonna' be here for a while, in large numbers," Graham said. "I ask the American people to be patient, because what happens here will affect our security back home."

McCain said the key issue wasn't how long the U.S. military would stay, but rather, bringing down the number of casualties while they're here.

U.S. troop deaths are reported nearly every day. One soldier died Friday in a suicide bombing.

As of Friday, at least 1,475 members of the U.S. military have died since the U.S. invaded in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Is he not a hypocrite? I can't say that...

What is he a "hypocrite" about?

He rants about "technocrats" and crap that rule the country but doesn't mind picking up that paycheck from the state and those he thinks are "little Eichmanns" ( http://www.denverpost.com/Stories....00.html ) ...

Just let him run his mouth...

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]Is he not a hypocrite? I can't say that...

What is he a "hypocrite" about?

He rants about "technocrats" and crap that rule the country but doesn't mind picking up that paycheck from the state and those he thinks are "little Eichmanns" ( http://www.denverpost.com/Stories....00.html ) ...

Just let him run his mouth...

Found this. Thought it was appropriate:

Quote[/b] ]Sufi Wisdom: World of Their Own

February 19, 2005 07:00 AM

by T.L. James of MarsBlog. Part of our weekly Sufi Wisdom series.

As terrorist Islam does its best to discredit the religion, it is important to remember that there are other voices within the faith. One such is the Sufis, a branch of Islamic mystics with roots in many religious traditions. The lessons of Sufism are often communicated through humorous stories and mystical or romantic poetry.

From Shah's Learning How to Learn, an observation apropos the Churchill brouhaha -- and one which possibly hits closer to home:

<ul>It is often said, and almost as often seen, that those who imagine that they are scholars 'live in a world of their own'.

How little it is noticed, though, that this world of their own is not the world of whoever or whatever they are supposed to be studying.

Note this and you will not be surprised at the otherwise amazing imaginings of the armchair scholar.

[bn880 5]

I am upset, my old prediction will be partly wrong if the US doesn't pull out it's troops more by Mid 2005. How can they do this to me. At least I was right about the failure... no WMD.

[theavonlady 2]

How can they do this to me.

Maybe you should start taking up knitting, like Madame Defarge did.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]Is he not a hypocrite? I can't say that...

What is he a "hypocrite" about?

He rants about "technocrats" and crap that rule the country but doesn't mind picking up that paycheck from the state and those he thinks are "little Eichmanns" ( http://www.denverpost.com/Stories....00.html ) ...

Just let him run his mouth...

Nice biased columnist there. You don't have an actual news article to back your statement? He no more works for the tax payers than I do. I work for the members of legislature, not Billy Jo from Hickville, even though he pays for part of my salary. Academics do not work for the taxpayers.

And even if he did, does that give the right to silence an academic whos job is to instigate free thought and discourse? Or should all academics just shut up and toe the political line? Maybe you would feel better in 1950s Russia?

Quote[/b] ]Churchill's statement

January 31, 2005

=====================================

The following is a statement from Ward Churchill:

In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.

* The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences.

* I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

* This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world. My feelings are reflected in Dr. King's April 1967 Riverside speech, where, when asked about the wave of urban rebellions in U.S. cities, he said, "I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government."

* In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to be U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television that "we" had decided it was "worth the cost." I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks, just as I mourn the deaths of those Iraqi children, the more than 3 million people killed in the war in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected to genocidal policies. If we respond with callous disregard to the deaths of others, we can only expect equal callousness to American deaths.

* Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as "Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.

* It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American "command and control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than "collateral damage." If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these "standards" when the are routinely applied to other people, they should be not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them.

* It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns" characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it was obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-1-1 attack. According to Pentagon logic, were simply part of the collateral damage. Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's no less ugly, painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone else. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and dehumanized in our name.

* The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to prevent 9-1-1-style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else.

* These points are clearly stated and documented in my book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which recently won Honorary Mention for the Gustavus Myer Human Rights Award. for best writing on human rights. Some people will, of course, disagree with my analysis, but it presents questions that must be addressed in academic and public debate if we are to find a real solution to the violence that pervades today's world. The gross distortions of what I actually said can only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this country.

Quote[/b] ]Below is the Original Essay by Ward Churchill

===========================================

[Globalization] "Some People Push Back" On the Justice of Roosting Chickens

written by Ward Churchill 9-11-2001

When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously – and quite charitably, all things considered – replied that it was merely a case of "chickens coming home to roost."

On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.

The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable – in fact, widely predicted – result of the 1991 US "surgical" bombing of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival.

If the nature of the bombing were not already bad enough – and it should be noted that this sort of "aerial warfare" constitutes a Class I Crime Against humanity, entailing myriad gross violations of international law, as well as every conceivable standard of "civilized" behavior – the death toll has been steadily ratcheted up by US-imposed sanctions for a full decade now. Enforced all the while by a massive military presence and periodic bombing raids, the embargo has greatly impaired the victims' ability to import the nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to saving the lives of even their toddlers.

All told, Iraq has a population of about 18 million. The 500,000 kids lost to date thus represent something on the order of 25 percent of their age group. Indisputably, the rest have suffered – are still suffering – a combination of physical debilitation and psychological trauma severe enough to prevent their ever fully recovering. In effect, an entire generation has been obliterated.

The reason for this holocaust was/is rather simple, and stated quite straightforwardly by President George Bush, the 41st "freedom-loving" father of the freedom-lover currently filling the Oval Office, George the 43rd: "The world must learn that what we say, goes," intoned George the Elder to the enthusiastic applause of freedom-loving Americans everywhere.

How Old George conveyed his message was certainly no mystery to the US public. One need only recall the 24-hour-per-day dissemination of bombardment videos on every available TV channel, and the exceedingly high ratings of these telecasts, to gain a sense of how much they knew.

In trying to affix a meaning to such things, we would do well to remember the wave of elation that swept America at reports of what was happening along the so-called Highway of Death: perhaps 100,000 "towel-heads" and "camel jockeys" – or was it "sand niggers" that week? – in full retreat, routed and effectively defenseless, many of them conscripted civilian laborers, slaughtered in a single day by jets firing the most hyper-lethal types of ordnance.

It was a performance worthy of the nazis during the early months of their drive into Russia. And it should be borne in mind that Good Germans gleefully cheered that butchery, too. Indeed, support for Hitler suffered no serious erosion among Germany's "innocent civilians" until the defeat at Stalingrad in 1943.

There may be a real utility to reflecting further, this time upon the fact that it was pious Americans who led the way in assigning the onus of collective guilt to the German people as a whole, not for things they as individuals had done, but for what they had allowed – nay, empowered – their leaders and their soldiers to do in their name.

If the principle was valid then, it remains so now, as applicable to Good Americans as it was the Good Germans. And the price exacted from the Germans for the faultiness of their moral fiber was truly ghastly.

Returning now to the children, and to the effects of the post-Gulf War embargo – continued bull force by Bush the Elder's successors in the Clinton administration as a gesture of its "resolve" to finalize what George himself had dubbed the "New World Order" of American military/economic domination – it should be noted that not one but two high United Nations officials attempting to coordinate delivery of humanitarian aid to Iraq resigned in succession as protests against US policy.

One of them, former U.N. Assistant Secretary General Denis Halladay, repeatedly denounced what was happening as "a systematic program . . . of deliberate genocide." His statements appeared in the New York Times and other papers during the fall of 1998, so it can hardly be contended that the American public was "unaware" of them.

Shortly thereafter, Secretary of State Madeline Albright openly confirmed Halladay's assessment. Asked during the widely-viewed TV program Meet the Press to respond to his "allegations," she calmly announced that she'd decided it was "worth the price" to see that U.S. objectives were achieved.

The Politics of a Perpetrator Population

As a whole, the American public greeted these revelations with yawns..

There were, after all, far more pressing things than the unrelenting misery/death of a few hundred thousand Iraqi tikes to be concerned with. Getting "Jeremy" and "Ellington" to their weekly soccer game, for instance, or seeing to it that little "Tiffany" an "Ashley" had just the right roll-neck sweaters to go with their new cords. And, to be sure, there was the yuppie holy war against ashtrays – for "our kids," no less – as an all-absorbing point of political focus.

In fairness, it must be admitted that there was an infinitesimally small segment of the body politic who expressed opposition to what was/is being done to the children of Iraq. It must also be conceded, however, that those involved by-and-large contented themselves with signing petitions and conducting candle-lit prayer vigils, bearing "moral witness" as vast legions of brown-skinned five-year-olds sat shivering in the dark, wide-eyed in horror, whimpering as they expired in the most agonizing ways imaginable.

Be it said as well, and this is really the crux of it, that the "resistance" expended the bulk of its time and energy harnessed to the systemically-useful task of trying to ensure, as "a principle of moral virtue" that nobody went further than waving signs as a means of "challenging" the patently exterminatory pursuit of Pax Americana. So pure of principle were these "dissidents," in fact, that they began literally to supplant the police in protecting corporations profiting by the carnage against suffering such retaliatory "violence" as having their windows broken by persons less "enlightened" – or perhaps more outraged – than the self-anointed "peacekeepers."

Property before people, it seems – or at least the equation of property to people – is a value by no means restricted to America's boardrooms. And the sanctimony with which such putrid sentiments are enunciated turns out to be nauseatingly similar, whether mouthed by the CEO of Standard Oil or any of the swarm of comfort zone "pacifists" queuing up to condemn the black block after it ever so slightly disturbed the functioning of business-as-usual in Seattle.

Small wonder, all-in-all, that people elsewhere in the world – the Mideast, for instance – began to wonder where, exactly, aside from the streets of the US itself, one was to find the peace America's purportedly oppositional peacekeepers claimed they were keeping.

The answer, surely, was plain enough to anyone unblinded by the kind of delusions engendered by sheer vanity and self-absorption.

So, too, were the implications in terms of anything changing, out there, in America's free-fire zones.

Tellingly, it was at precisely this point – with the genocide in Iraq officially admitted and a public response demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were virtually no Americans, including most of those professing otherwise, doing anything tangible to stop it – that the combat teams which eventually commandeered the aircraft used on September 11 began to infiltrate the United States.

Meet the "Terrorists"

Of the men who came, there are a few things demanding to be said in the face of the unending torrent of disinformational drivel unleashed by George Junior and the corporate "news" media immediately following their successful operation on September 11.

They did not, for starters, "initiate" a war with the US, much less commit "the first acts of war of the new millennium."

A good case could be made that the war in which they were combatants has been waged more-or-less continuously by the "Christian West" – now proudly emblematized by the United States – against the "Islamic East" since the time of the First Crusade, about 1,000 years ago. More recently, one could argue that the war began when Lyndon Johnson first lent significant support to Israel's dispossession/displacement of Palestinians during the 1960s, or when George the Elder ordered "Desert Shield" in 1990, or at any of several points in between. Any way you slice it, however, if what the combat teams did to the WTC and the Pentagon can be understood as acts of war – and they can – then the same is true of every US "overflight' of Iraqi territory since day one. The first acts of war during the current millennium thus occurred on its very first day, and were carried out by U.S. aviators acting under orders from their then-commander-in-chief, Bill Clinton. The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course. That they waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint.

They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.

The men who flew the missions against the WTC and Pentagon were not "cowards."

That distinction properly belongs to the "firm-jawed lads" who delighted in flying stealth aircraft through the undefended airspace of Baghdad, dropping payload after payload of bombs on anyone unfortunate enough to be below – including tens of thousands of genuinely innocent civilians – while themselves incurring all the risk one might expect during a visit to the local video arcade. Still more, the word describes all those "fighting men and women" who sat at computer consoles aboard ships in the Persian Gulf, enjoying air-conditioned comfort while launching cruise missiles into neighborhoods filled with random human beings. Whatever else can be said of them, the men who struck on September 11 manifested the courage of their convictions, willingly expending their own lives in attaining their objectives.

Nor were they "fanatics" devoted to "Islamic fundamentalism."

One might rightly describe their actions as "desperate." Feelings of desperation, however, are a perfectly reasonable – one is tempted to say "normal" – emotional response among persons confronted by the mass murder of their children, particularly when it appears that nobody else really gives a damn (ask a Jewish survivor about this one, or, even more poignantly, for all the attention paid them, a Gypsy). That desperate circumstances generate desperate responses is no mysterious or irrational principle, of the sort motivating fanatics. Less is it one peculiar to Islam. Indeed, even the FBI's investigative reports on the combat teams' activities during the months leading up to September 11 make it clear that the members were not fundamentalist Muslims. Rather, it's pretty obvious at this point that they were secular activists – soldiers, really – who, while undoubtedly enjoying cordial relations with the clerics of their countries, were motivated far more by the grisly realities of the U.S. war against them than by a set of religious beliefs.

And still less were they/their acts "insane."

Insanity is a condition readily associable with the very American idea that one – or one's country – holds what amounts to a "divine right" to commit genocide, and thus to forever do so with impunity. The term might also be reasonably applied to anyone suffering genocide without attempting in some material way to bring the process to a halt. Sanity itself, in this frame of reference, might be defined by a willingness to try and destroy the perpetrators and/or the sources of their ability to commit their crimes. (Shall we now discuss the US "strategic bombing campaign" against Germany during World War II, and the mental health of those involved in it?)

Which takes us to official characterizations of the combat teams as an embodiment of "evil."

Evil – for those inclined to embrace the banality of such a concept – was perfectly incarnated in that malignant toad known as Madeline Albright, squatting in her studio chair like Jaba the Hutt, blandly spewing the news that she'd imposed a collective death sentence upon the unoffending youth of Iraq. Evil was to be heard in that great American hero "Stormin' Norman" Schwartzkopf's utterly dehumanizing dismissal of their systematic torture and annihilation as mere "collateral damage." Evil, moreover, is a term appropriate to describing the mentality of a public that finds such perspectives and the policies attending them acceptable, or even momentarily tolerable.

Had it not been for these evils, the counterattacks of September 11 would never have occurred. And unless "the world is rid of such evil," to lift a line from George Junior, September 11 may well end up looking like a lark. There is no reason, after all, to believe that the teams deployed in the assaults on the WTC and the Pentagon were the only such, that the others are composed of "Arabic-looking individuals" – America's indiscriminately lethal arrogance and psychotic sense of self-entitlement have long since given the great majority of the world's peoples ample cause to be at war with it – or that they are in any way dependent upon the seizure of civilian airliners to complete their missions.

To the contrary, there is every reason to expect that there are many other teams in place, tasked to employ altogether different tactics in executing operational plans at least as well-crafted as those evident on September 11, and very well equipped for their jobs. This is to say that, since the assaults on the WTC and Pentagon were act of war – not "terrorist incidents" – they must be understood as components in a much broader strategy designed to achieve specific results. From this, it can only be adduced that there are plenty of other components ready to go, and that they will be used, should this become necessary in the eyes of the strategists. It also seems a safe bet that each component is calibrated to inflict damage at a level incrementally higher than the one before (during the 1960s, the Johnson administration employed a similar policy against Vietnam, referred to as "escalation").

Since implementation of the overall plan began with the WTC/Pentagon assaults, it takes no rocket scientist to decipher what is likely to happen next, should the U.S. attempt a response of the inexcusable variety to which it has long entitled itself.

About Those Boys (and Girls) in the Bureau

There's another matter begging for comment at this point. The idea that the FBI's "counterterrorism task forces" can do a thing to prevent what will happen is yet another dimension of America's delusional pathology.. The fact is that, for all its publicly-financed "image-building" exercises, the Bureau has never shown the least aptitude for anything of the sort.

Oh, yeah, FBI counterintelligence personnel have proven quite adept at framing anarchists, communists and Black Panthers, sometimes murdering them in their beds or the electric chair. The Bureau's SWAT units have displayed their ability to combat child abuse in Waco by burning babies alive, and its vaunted Crime Lab has been shown to pad its "crime-fighting' statistics by fabricating evidence against many an alleged car thief. But actual "heavy-duty bad guys" of the sort at issue now?

This isn't a Bruce Willis/Chuck Norris/Sly Stallone movie, after all.. And J. Edgar Hoover doesn't get to approve either the script or the casting.

The number of spies, saboteurs and bona fide terrorists apprehended, or even detected by the FBI in the course of its long and slimy history could be counted on one's fingers and toes. On occasion, its agents have even turned out to be the spies, and, in many instances, the terrorists as well.

To be fair once again, if the Bureau functions as at best a carnival of clowns where its "domestic security responsibilities" are concerned, this is because – regardless of official hype – it has none. It is now, as it's always been, the national political police force, and instrument created and perfected to ensure that all Americans, not just the consenting mass, are "free" to do exactly as they're told.

The FBI and "cooperating agencies" can be thus relied upon to set about "protecting freedom" by destroying whatever rights and liberties were left to U.S. citizens before September 11 (in fact, they've already received authorization to begin). Sheeplike, the great majority of Americans can also be counted upon to bleat their approval, at least in the short run, believing as they always do that the nasty implications of what they're doing will pertain only to others.

Oh Yeah, and "The Company," Too

A possibly even sicker joke is the notion, suddenly in vogue, that the CIA will be able to pinpoint "terrorist threats," "rooting out their infrastructure" where it exists and/or "terminating" it before it can materialize, if only it's allowed to beef up its "human intelligence gathering capacity" in an unrestrained manner (including full-bore operations inside the US, of course).

Yeah. Right.

Since America has a collective attention-span of about 15 minutes, a little refresher seems in order: "The Company" had something like a quarter-million people serving as "intelligence assets" by feeding it information in Vietnam in 1968, and it couldn't even predict the Tet Offensive. God knows how many spies it was fielding against the USSR at the height of Ronald Reagan's version of the Cold War, and it was still caught flatfooted by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

As to destroying "terrorist infrastructures," one would do well to remember Operation Phoenix, another product of its open season in Vietnam. In that one, the CIA enlisted elite US units like the Navy Seals and Army Special Forces, as well as those of friendly countries – the south Vietnamese Rangers, for example, and Australian SAS – to run around "neutralizing" folks targeted by The Company's legion of snitches as "guerrillas" (as those now known as "terrorists" were then called).

Sound familiar?

Upwards of 40,000 people – mostly bystanders, as it turns out – were murdered by Phoenix hit teams before the guerrillas, stronger than ever, ran the US and its collaborators out of their country altogether.

And these are the guys who are gonna save the day, if unleashed to do their thing in North America?

The net impact of all this "counterterrorism" activity upon the combat teams' ability to do what they came to do, of course, will be nil. Instead, it's likely to make it easier for them to operate (it's worked that way in places like Northern Ireland). And, since denying Americans the luxury of reaping the benefits of genocide in comfort was self-evidently a key objective of the WTC/Pentagon assaults, it can be stated unequivocally that a more overt display of the police state mentality already pervading this country simply confirms the magnitude of their victory.

On Matters of Proportion and Intent

As things stand, including the 1993 detonation at the WTC, "Arab terrorists" have responded to the massive and sustained American terror bombing of Iraq with a total of four assaults by explosives inside the US. That's about 1% of the 50,000 bombs the Pentagon announced were rained on Baghdad alone during the Gulf War (add in Oklahoma City and you'll get something nearer an actual 1%). They've managed in the process to kill about 5,000 Americans, or roughly 1% of the dead Iraqi children (the percentage is far smaller if you factor in the killing of adult Iraqi civilians, not to mention troops butchered as/after they'd surrendered and/or after the "war-ending" ceasefire had been announced).

In terms undoubtedly more meaningful to the property/profit-minded American mainstream, they've knocked down a half-dozen buildings – albeit some very well-chosen ones – as opposed to the "strategic devastation" visited upon the whole of Iraq, and punched a $100 billion hole in the earnings outlook of major corporate shareholders, as opposed to the U.S. obliteration of Iraq's entire economy.

With that, they've given Americans a tiny dose of their own medicine..

This might be seen as merely a matter of "vengeance" or "retribution," and, unquestionably, America has earned it, even if it were to add up only to something so ultimately petty.

The problem is that vengeance is usually framed in terms of "getting even," a concept which is plainly inapplicable in this instance. As the above data indicate, it would require another 49,996 detonations killing 495,000 more Americans, for the "terrorists" to "break even" for the bombing of Baghdad/extermination of Iraqi children alone. And that's to achieve "real number" parity. To attain an actual proportional parity of damage – the US is about 15 times as large as Iraq in terms of population, even more in terms of territory – they would, at a minimum, have to blow up about 300,000 more buildings and kill something on the order of 7.5 million people.

Were this the intent of those who've entered the US to wage war against it, it would remain no less true that America and Americans were only receiving the bill for what they'd already done.

Payback, as they say, can be a real motherfucker (ask the Germans).

There is, however, no reason to believe that retributive parity is necessarily an item on the agenda of those who planned the WTC/Pentagon operation. If it were, given the virtual certainty that they possessed the capacity to have inflicted far more damage than they did, there would be a lot more American bodies lying about right now.

Hence, it can be concluded that ravings carried by the "news" media since September 11 have contained at least one grain of truth: The peoples of the Mideast "aren't like" Americans, not least because they don't "value life' in the same way. By this, it should be understood that Middle-Easterners, unlike Americans, have no history of exterminating others purely for profit, or on the basis of racial animus. Thus, we can appreciate the fact that they value life – all lives, not just their own – far more highly than do their U.S. counterparts.

The Makings of a Humanitarian Strategy

In sum one can discern a certain optimism – it might even be call humanitarianism – imbedded in the thinking of those who presided over the very limited actions conducted on September 11.

Their logic seems to have devolved upon the notion that the American people have condoned what has been/is being done in their name – indeed, are to a significant extent actively complicit in it – mainly because they have no idea what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

Now they do.

That was the "medicinal" aspect of the attacks.

To all appearances, the idea is now to give the tonic a little time to take effect, jolting Americans into the realization that the sort of pain they're now experiencing first-hand is no different from – or the least bit more excruciating than – that which they've been so cavalier in causing others, and thus to respond appropriately.

More bluntly, the hope was – and maybe still is – that Americans, stripped of their presumed immunity from incurring any real consequences for their behavior, would comprehend and act upon a formulation as uncomplicated as "stop killing our kids, if you want your own to be safe."

Either way, it's a kind of "reality therapy" approach, designed to afford the American people a chance to finally "do the right thing" on their own, without further coaxing.

Were the opportunity acted upon in some reasonably good faith fashion – a sufficiently large number of Americans rising up and doing whatever is necessary to force an immediate lifting of the sanctions on Iraq, for instance, or maybe hanging a few of America's abundant supply of major war criminals (Henry Kissinger comes quickly to mind, as do Madeline Albright, Colin Powell, Bill Clinton and George the Elder) – there is every reason to expect that military operations against the US on its domestic front would be immediately suspended.

Whether they would remain so would of course be contingent upon follow-up. By that, it may be assumed that American acceptance of onsite inspections by international observers to verify destruction of its weapons of mass destruction (as well as dismantlement of all facilities in which more might be manufactured), Nuremberg-style trials in which a few thousand US military/corporate personnel could be properly adjudicated and punished for their Crimes Against humanity, and payment of reparations to the array of nations/peoples whose assets the US has plundered over the years, would suffice.

Since they've shown no sign of being unreasonable or vindictive, it may even be anticipated that, after a suitable period of adjustment and reeducation (mainly to allow them to acquire the skills necessary to living within their means), those restored to control over their own destinies by the gallant sacrifices of the combat teams the WTC and Pentagon will eventually (re)admit Americans to the global circle of civilized societies. Stranger things have happened.

In the Alternative

Unfortunately, noble as they may have been, such humanitarian aspirations were always doomed to remain unfulfilled. For it to have been otherwise, a far higher quality of character and intellect would have to prevail among average Americans than is actually the case.

Perhaps the strategists underestimated the impact a couple of generations-worth of media indoctrination can produce in terms of demolishing the capacity of human beings to form coherent thoughts. Maybe they forgot to factor in the mind-numbing effects of the indoctrination passed off as education in the US.

Then, again, it's entirely possible they were aware that a decisive majority of American adults have been reduced by this point to a level much closer to the kind of immediate self-gratification entailed in Pavlovian stimulus/response patterns than anything accessible by appeals to higher logic, and still felt morally obliged to offer the dolts an option to quit while they were ahead.

What the hell? It was worth a try.

But it's becoming increasingly apparent that the dosage of medicine administered was entirely insufficient to accomplish its purpose.

Although there are undoubtedly exceptions, Americans for the most part still don't get it.

Already, they've desecrated the temporary tomb of those killed in the WTC, staging a veritable pep rally atop the mangled remains of those they profess to honor, treating the whole affair as if it were some bizarre breed of contact sport. And, of course, there are the inevitable pom-poms shaped like American flags, the school colors worn as little red-white-and-blue ribbons affixed to labels, sportscasters in the form of "counterterrorism experts" drooling mindless color commentary during the pregame warm-up.

Refusing the realization that the world has suddenly shifted its axis, and that they are therefore no longer "in charge," they have by-and-large reverted instantly to type, working themselves into their usual bloodlust on the now obsolete premise that the bloodletting will "naturally" occur elsewhere and to someone else.

"Patriotism," a wise man once observed, "is the last refuge of scoundrels."

And the braided, he might of added.

Braided Scoundrel-in-Chief, George Junior, lacking even the sense to be careful what he wished for, has teamed up with a gaggle of fundamentalist Christian clerics like Billy Graham to proclaim a "New Crusade" called "Infinite Justice" aimed at "ridding the world of evil."

One could easily make light of such rhetoric, remarking upon how unseemly it is for a son to threaten his father in such fashion – or a president to so publicly contemplate the murder/suicide of himself and his cabinet – but the matter is deadly serious.

They are preparing once again to sally forth for the purpose of roasting brown-skinned children by the scores of thousands. Already, the B-1 bombers and the aircraft carriers and the missile frigates are en route, the airborne divisions are gearing up to go.

To where? Afghanistan?

The Sudan?

Iraq, again (or still)?

How about Grenada (that was fun)?

Any of them or all. It doesn't matter.

The desire to pummel the helpless runs rabid as ever.

Only, this time it's different.

The time the helpless aren't, or at least are not so helpless as they were.

This time, somewhere, perhaps in an Afghani mountain cave, possibly in a Brooklyn basement, maybe another local altogether – but somewhere, all the same – there's a grim-visaged (wo)man wearing a Clint Eastwood smile.

"Go ahead, punks," s/he's saying, "Make my day."

And when they do, when they launch these airstrikes abroad – or may a little later; it will be at a time conforming to the "terrorists"' own schedule, and at a place of their choosing – the next more intensive dose of medicine administered here "at home."

Of what will it consist this time? Anthrax? Mustard gas? Sarin? A tactical nuclear device?

That, too, is their choice to make.

Looking back, it will seem to future generations inexplicable why Americans were unable on their own, and in time to save themselves, to accept a rule of nature so basic that it could be mouthed by an actor, Lawrence Fishburn, in a movie, The Cotton Club.

"You've got to learn, " the line went, "that when you push people around, some people push back."

As they should.

As they must.

And as they undoubtedly will.

There is justice in such symmetry.

=====================================

ADDENDUM

=====================================

The preceding was a "first take" reading, more a stream-of-consciousness interpretive reaction to the September 11 counterattack than a finished piece on the topic. Hence, I'll readily admit that I've been far less than thorough, and quite likely wrong about a number of things.

For instance, it may not have been (only) the ghosts of Iraqi children who made their appearance that day. It could as easily have been some or all of their butchered Palestinian cousins.

Or maybe it was some or all of the at least 3.2 million Indochinese who perished as a result of America's sustained and genocidal assault on Southeast Asia (1959-1975), not to mention the millions more who've died because of the sanctions imposed thereafter.

Perhaps there were a few of the Korean civilians massacred by US troops at places like No Gun Ri during the early ‘50s, or the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians ruthlessly incinerated in the ghastly fire raids of World War II (only at Dresden did America bomb Germany in a similar manner).

And, of course, it could have been those vaporized in the militarily pointless nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There are others, as well, a vast and silent queue of faceless victims, stretching from the million-odd Filipinos slaughtered during America's "Indian War" in their islands at the beginning of the twentieth century, through the real Indians, America's own, massacred wholesale at places like Horseshoe Bend and the Bad Axe, Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, the Washita, Bear River, and the Marias.

Was it those who expired along the Cherokee Trial of Tears of the Long Walk of the Navajo?

Those murdered by smallpox at Fort Clark in 1836?

Starved to death in the concentration camp at Bosque Redondo during the 1860s?

Maybe those native people claimed for scalp bounty in all 48 of the continental US states? Or the Raritans whose severed heads were kicked for sport along the streets of what was then called New Amsterdam, at the very site where the WTC once stood?

One hears, too, the whispers of those lost on the Middle Passage, and of those whose very flesh was sold in the slave market outside the human kennel from whence Wall Street takes its name.

And of coolie laborers, imported by the gross-dozen to lay the tracks of empire across scorching desert sands, none of them allotted "a Chinaman's chance" of surviving.

The list is too long, too awful to go on.

No matter what its eventual fate, America will have gotten off very, very cheap.

The full measure of its guilt can never be fully balanced or atoned for.

Reminds me of the right-wing screamfest about Kerry saying he witnessed war crimes, and calling the troops murders when in fact the transcript proves he said no such thing. I didn't bold the "little Eichmanns" part because I figured that would enable you to skip through the rest of the essay and loosing its context.

This is just another example of the Bill Moher effect. How dare someone say something against this country! How dare someone point out our own culpability in the events of 9/11! How dare someone use hte 1st Amendment to speak against the Bush regime! As Ari Fleischer said:

"And that's why -- there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party -- they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is."

Freedom is over rated anyway.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Nice biased columnist there. You don't have an actual news article to back your statement? He no more works for the tax payers than I do. I work for the members of legislature, not Billy Jo from Hickville, even though he pays for part of my salary. Academics do not work for the taxpayers.

Bias?

Quote[/b] ]

So when Churchill contends - as he did Tuesday night - that he does not work for Bill Owens or the CU regents, he's telling the truth.

Just not the whole truth.

Quote[/b] ]CU officials say roughly 15 percent of Churchill's $92,000-a-year salary - $13,800 - comes from state tax dollars. The remaining 85 percent - $78,200 - comes from tuition. But about 74 percent of that tuition - $57,868 - comes from out-of-state students, CU says.

....

Quote[/b] ]Nice biased columnist there.

What do you think of Ward writing then? Fair and balanced. He is pissing everywhere including Sudan...wtf Sudan...  

From what I read, Ward has disdain towards the govt. and captialism ( They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly.).

[theavonlady 2]

This is just another example of the Bill Moher effect.

No.

This is simply the case of what happens when you hire an unqualified educator who knows no boundaries of tolerance and sensitivity.

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]What do you think of Ward writing then? Fair and balanced.

It wasn't meant to be "fair and balanced." Its an academic analysis based on his beliefs, about the events of 9/11.

Quote[/b] ]For what I read, Ward has disdain for the govt. and captialism

Perhaps you should reread. He has disdain for capitalism and government as long as they perpetuate suffering on those less "fortunate" or able to fight back, and this is the basis for which those forces that have been oppressed by government and capitalism to fight back. 9/11 is a mere consequence of our governments perpetuation of suffering on these people. Its nothing greater or less than what has been stated here thousands of times. After 9/11 even bin laden said he was striking at the "symbol" of America's financial and international power...the WTC and the Pentagon.

My guess is you just can't get past the illy-chosen inflammatory language to see the heart of what he has said (again....nothing new.)

Quote[/b] ]This is simply the case of what happens when you hire an unqualified educator who knows no boundaries of tolerance and sensitivity.

Yes yes. Heaven forbid someone look at 9/11 from a cause/effect perspective. We are not innocent victims, in the sense of not holding culpability, though I know holding that view makes it easier to swallow some of the events the US has caused afterwards.

Quote[/b] ]

So when Churchill contends - as he did Tuesday night - that he does not work for Bill Owens or the CU regents, he's telling the truth.

Just not the whole truth.

Quote

CU officials say roughly 15 percent of Churchill's $92,000-a-year salary - $13,800 - comes from state tax dollars. The remaining 85 percent - $78,200 - comes from tuition. But about 74 percent of that tuition - $57,868 - comes from out-of-state students, CU says.

I fail to see the relevence. As I said, being paid in any amount of tax dollars does not beholden one to the tax payers. Maybe you missed this:

Quote[/b] ]He no more works for the tax payers than I do. I work for the members of legislature, not Billy Jo from Hickville, even though he pays for part of my salary. Academics do not work for the taxpayers.

And even if he did, does that give the right to silence an academic whos job is to instigate free thought and discourse? Or should all academics just shut up and toe the political line? Maybe you would feel better in 1950s Russia?

So again. What is the point of bringing up his salary based on tax revenue? Are you advocating that all those that have been paid in any form by tax dollars be loyal to Der Fuhrer?

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]So again. What is the point of bringing up his salary based on tax revenue? Are you advocating that all those that have been paid in any form by tax dollars be loyal to Der Fuhrer?

No, but...

Quote[/b] ]The system he so despises has not kept him down. It has propped him up.

....

Quote[/b] ]

He has disdain for capitalism and government as long as they perpetuate suffering on those less "fortunate" or able to fight back, and this is the basis for which those forces that have been oppressed by government and capitalism to fight back.

And, he still has disdain for this country govt. and capitalistic society (what I was trying to say).  

Quote[/b] ]More recently, one could argue that the war began when Lyndon Johnson first lent significant support to Israel's dispossession/displacement of Palestinians during the 1960s, or when George the Elder ordered "Desert Shield" in 1990, or at any of several points in between

Didn't arab countries kick out jews after Israel was formed? Does that give them the right to push back aganist arab countries? Furthermore, Desert Shield was not just the US against Iraq but the international community (UN)/US against Iraq.

He likes to quote King but he (King) would not agree that what they did was right by using violence. I would think they (60s blacks) were pushed back in to a tree. Even X (the rooster guy) changed his tone after his visit to Mecca.

It seems he is trying to put all in a nice little package which is impossible.

Quote[/b] ]Yes yes. Heaven forbid someone look at 9/11 from a cause/effect perspective. We are not innocent victims, in the sense of not holding culpability, though I know holding that view makes it easier to swallow some of the events the US has caused afterwards.

What about the causes for the causes that caused 9/11? Why did the govt. do this action and this action.