Boy, I really go through a trial, every time I consider posting here. You cannot imagine the moralistic knots I put myself through, every time I reach for the keyboard. You see, I disagree with the latest moderation policies here, and so I am going against my declaration not to participate.
But to sit here and read such a declaration of willful ignorance begs...no, SHOUTS...for a reply. Who knows? Maybe this post will never make it online. Perhaps I'll hit the cancel button before I'm through.
If not...then consider it a lapse of weakness, in service to my need to be heard.
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Mark Murray wrote:
This current war is probably the most humane war we've undertaken. If even a slight rumor that our soldiers have killed civilians gets out, there's an inquiry. and that's from a rumor, not cold hard facts. We have severe rules of behaviour.
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"Severe rules?" Oh really? Sorry, Mark, but you seem to be forgetting about the 100,000 or so PRIVATE CONTRACTORS, bound to no rules of inquiry, no penalties. If one of these guys gets caught, he generally is sent back to the States, with no punishment at all.
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Our enemies? Strapping bombs to anything in sight and blowing up anyone at all.
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Which makes SO much difference to the innocent dead (and uncounted) Iraqi's, shot on the roadside, or murdered in secret, by US forces, I'm sure.
Whether you're beheaded, blown up by a suicide bomb, raped and tortured by US forces, or bombed by US planes (as we did to Iraq between 1998-2002, in violation of international law), dead is dead.
Do you think it really matters HOW it was done, once you're dead?
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why don't you go ask Daniel Pearl how he was treated by terrorists.
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OK...then I'll go talk to Maher Arar, or Jose Padilla (locked up so long his mind is gone), of the unknown victims of extroadinary rendition, or...
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How about the 3000 innocent civilians at the twin towers?
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Gosh, you and Rudy Guiliani DO have something in common, don't you...? A certain, um, propensity to mention a certain day, when thousands of other "9-11's" are going on every day, courtesy of our--and our close friends (Israel, et al)--tax-subsidized military.
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Our current president has kept U.S. citizens safe ever since the terrorists murdered innocent people on September 11th, 2001.
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Nah...all he did was "make it rain." We pay him: and if it rains...look! He made it rain!
If not, then he obviously needs more money, to "make it rain."
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There is a very huge difference between our actions and the terrorist's actions.
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Sure is...it's called the "US military budget."
Yes, a very, VERY big difference, indeed.
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And one man's terrorist is most decidedly not another man's patriot. A patriot would never use a knife to hack off a journalist's head.
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Nah...they'd just jail 'em for years on end, without charge. That makes us the "good guys,,," right?
Sami Al-Haj and Bilal Hussein: Their Names Mostly Unknown in U.S., Jailed Journalists Have Spent Combined Six Years in U.S. Military Prisons Without Charge
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We take an in-depth look at the case of two reporters whose imprisonment by U.S. forces has gone largely ignored in the corporate media. Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj has been jailed without charge at Guantanamo for the past five-and-a-half years. Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has spent more than a year in a U.S. military prison in Iraq, also without charge. U.S. officials haven't made public any evidence of wrongdoing.
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If you really can't tell the differences, I suggest a visit to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, etc and find a place among the terrorists. Just give that thought some undivided attention and think about long and hard. Think about truly doing it, being there.
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An excellent idea...let's go together. Let's live among the innocent people who have their doors kicked in, their oil opened up to national interests (read: stolen), their country "made safe from tyranny."
Yeah, let's do that....if we could survive the mass lynching we'd get for turning their country into a training ground for terrorists, if we weren't made deaf from all the shouting, we'd probably get kidnapped by men desperate to make ANY money to feed their families, or simply shot onsite by men forced to become insurgents or (the smallest minority of all) actual terrorists who WOULD kidnap and kill us...
After all that, in those few seconds left to our lives...perhaps you'd consider that all this violence wouldn't be HALF so bad if there weren't 769 US bases around the world, or that Iraq six years' ago was free of Al Qaeda and suicide bombs...but I doubt it.
The truth takes awhile to sink in.
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And if those thoughts somehow give you an uneasy feeling, then you know in some part of yourself that there are differences. Here, you won't be killed.
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Unless your name sounds Arabic.
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There, your chances are a lot greater that you'll be tortured and/or murdered.
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Now that we've so properly set the stage.
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Here you can say and write what you want. There you would be killed for those actions.
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You DO realize that the US censored the Iraqi press, don't you??
No, Mark: there is a GREAT NEED to converse. Conversation brings in new information. New information breeds curiousity, a need to validate.
Or, it could bring in greater polarization. Really, the choice is up to you.
But to respond directly to your comment...
* Abu Ghraib
* Guantanamo
* Extraordinary Rendition
* Use of Torture, and redefining torture
* Mass Deportations and jailings of hundreds of thousands of Arabs
After all this, even then, I'd say that we were "different" from terrorists and failed states. You see, I could point to Habeas Corpus and state that anyone accused of a trial could demand a reason.
Not anymore. Now that Habeas is gone, we are truly no better than they.
Now...will I weaken and hit "send..." or will I cancel....?