Just call it war
By Capt. Fogg
Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow'r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?
Macbeth -- Act 5, Scene 1
Frankly, I'm not as disturbed by the images of torture and mayhem perpetrated by American "warriors" as by some of the public response you can see at Wired.com, where Abu Ghraib photos have been published. It's the ones that argue "this is a war and in a war..." and the ones that say "but these are Muslims and they would be happy to eat your children, yadda, yadda..." that make me most ashamed to have any association with this self-righteous and evil nation. They've made me evil, too; Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld and their puppet George Bush. I'm part of it because all I do is complain. I don't risk losing my life to end it, nor even my freedom. All I do is blog and go about my life of comfort and safety.
I got a video in my e-mail yesterday. I don't know whether it was staged or real, but it showed some US military personnel walking through an airport while people stood up and applauded. No one could have been thinking of the archive of pictures on view at UnderMars.com. They aren't returning from a parade ground, but from hell, and a hell the United States of America created with eagerness and enthusiasm and lies.
Men with plastic bags on their heads being beaten, smiling "warriors" posing with corpses, a man's severed penis in a mousetrap, blood and pain and shit -- these are things many Americans think "you do in a war" even though you started the war and of course anyone caught up in the grinder is promoted to the ranks of the "terrorists" who bombed New York even though they didn't.
So clap when you see our soldiers. I'm sure nearly all of them are good people, but don't call them warriors. Warriors take scalps, soldiers are responsible for their actions. Warriors represent themselves, soldiers represent us and when there's blood on their hands, it's on our hands too and remember, when John McCain tries to tell you this is noble, this is about protecting your sainted mother, your back yard barbecue and your civil rights -- it isn't. It's about water up the nose, the cattle prod up the ass, bloody teeth spilling out like corn from a popper. It's about rape, about shit and piss and blood on the floor being wiped up with the flag we're supposed to worship like some tawdry pagan idol.
It's about millions of homeless innocents, about a lost generation of uneducated children brought up in terror and squalor and hate. It's about people whose crime was fighting for their homes being tortured like John McCain who once was tortured by those whose homes and children he was destroying. It's about evil. It's about me and about you justifying it all by just calling it war.
(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)
Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow'r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?
Macbeth -- Act 5, Scene 1
Frankly, I'm not as disturbed by the images of torture and mayhem perpetrated by American "warriors" as by some of the public response you can see at Wired.com, where Abu Ghraib photos have been published. It's the ones that argue "this is a war and in a war..." and the ones that say "but these are Muslims and they would be happy to eat your children, yadda, yadda..." that make me most ashamed to have any association with this self-righteous and evil nation. They've made me evil, too; Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld and their puppet George Bush. I'm part of it because all I do is complain. I don't risk losing my life to end it, nor even my freedom. All I do is blog and go about my life of comfort and safety.
I got a video in my e-mail yesterday. I don't know whether it was staged or real, but it showed some US military personnel walking through an airport while people stood up and applauded. No one could have been thinking of the archive of pictures on view at UnderMars.com. They aren't returning from a parade ground, but from hell, and a hell the United States of America created with eagerness and enthusiasm and lies.
Men with plastic bags on their heads being beaten, smiling "warriors" posing with corpses, a man's severed penis in a mousetrap, blood and pain and shit -- these are things many Americans think "you do in a war" even though you started the war and of course anyone caught up in the grinder is promoted to the ranks of the "terrorists" who bombed New York even though they didn't.
So clap when you see our soldiers. I'm sure nearly all of them are good people, but don't call them warriors. Warriors take scalps, soldiers are responsible for their actions. Warriors represent themselves, soldiers represent us and when there's blood on their hands, it's on our hands too and remember, when John McCain tries to tell you this is noble, this is about protecting your sainted mother, your back yard barbecue and your civil rights -- it isn't. It's about water up the nose, the cattle prod up the ass, bloody teeth spilling out like corn from a popper. It's about rape, about shit and piss and blood on the floor being wiped up with the flag we're supposed to worship like some tawdry pagan idol.
It's about millions of homeless innocents, about a lost generation of uneducated children brought up in terror and squalor and hate. It's about people whose crime was fighting for their homes being tortured like John McCain who once was tortured by those whose homes and children he was destroying. It's about evil. It's about me and about you justifying it all by just calling it war.
(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)
Labels: Abu Ghraib, Evil, Iraq War, torture, U.S. military
posted by Capt. Fogg at
11:19 AM
4 Comments:
Incredibly powerful post, Fogg. Thank you for putting it up.
Of course, the right-wing smear machine would call you a traitor, among other things, for being such a decent human being and, indeed, for being such a good American.
By
Michael J.W. Stickings, at 2:28 PM
I hate myself for not being more of a traitor to this regime.
By
Capt. Fogg, at 4:37 PM
I was set to cross post something today, and decided to check what was already up.
I read your post and was blown away by it, Capt Fogg. And I shall not post today so that your important piece gets many readings, as it should.
I am honored to be in Michael's group with you.
By
Carol Gee, at 4:41 PM
Thank you. I'm so used to being trashed for my opinions that I'm not sure how to handle it when someone agrees :-)
By
Capt. Fogg, at 9:50 AM
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