My oldest niece (né nephew) is one of those transgender soldiers now (apparently) banned from serving in the military. She retired after nearly three decades of service, transitioning while serving in the California National Guard (c. 2007)
She started her military career -- yes, career -- in the Marine Corps (c. 1976), and after four years, left for a civilian life, only to rejoin the military in the CNG after two years. She stayed in the Guard for over 25 years, retiring as a decorated master sergeant a few years ago.
I don't know many of the details of her service or transition -- at least not in the last few years as we lost contact with her during some other upheavals among the family, and I'm not entirely sure where she is now. Much as I'll bet she's not entirely sure where we are these days.
All I'll add to this right now is that Trump's tweet (whoever wrote it) about banning transgender individuals from the military seemed intended as a disruptive monkey wrench-shiny object, catnip for the media and a vicious blow to a disfavored minority to capture the news cycles while the Senate undertook Repeal and Replace.
It failed mightily.
Anthony Scaramucci put out the idea that Trump was a disruptor operating a start-up the other day. A disruptor yes, but the US Government -- let alone the presidency -- is not a "start-up". Not only will this not end well, I suspect it will end soon.
But then, what do I know? Nuttin'. That's what.
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Friday, July 28, 2017
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
The Kunduz Hospital Atrocity
The number of killed and wounded at the Kunduz, Afghanistan hospital run by MSF is somewhat uncertain. Dozens are dead or injured, at any rate.
They were killed and wounded during a nighttime attack from above. At least one US AC-130 and possibly one or more helicopter gunships fired on the hospital's main building around 2am, largely destroying the hospital and causing significant death and injury to patients (some of whom are reported to have "burned in their beds") and to staff.
MSF has called the attack a war crime.
The Defense Department has characterized it as an "accident," or perhaps a "tragic" incident justified by reports of Taliban fighters using the site to fire on American and/or Afghan forces operating in the area to retake Kunduz from Taliban insurgents, yadda yadda.
MSF insists that there were no Taliban fighters on the grounds or in the hospital, and there was no firing from the compound before or during the attack.
Of course under the shadowy Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan and other theaters of our many overseas wars, it doesn't matter whether the reports of Taliban fighters using the grounds and hospital as positions from which to fire on American and Afghan forces are true or false. It only matters that there are reports of suspected enemy presence or action from such and such a location to unleash Death From Above. Confirmation is never required as actual confirmation might jeopardize a troop on the ground. Can't have that. Good heavens no.
Force protection is All Important. The deaths of untold numbers of civilians, and the destruction of protected infrastructure such as hospitals, power plants, water treatment and pumping plants, etc, matters far less (actually not at all) compared to the necessity to protect the force.
Such death and destruction is patently a war crime under various treaties, but it's routine in the US pursuit of Empire, and there is no plausible prosecutorial means to hold the Imperial forces liable. Much the same is true of Israel's actions in its attacks on Gaza. Israel routinely attacks and destroys protected sites and infrastructure, killing untold numbers of civilians and other protected individuals, and Israel justifies it through reference to reports of enemy action at or near these sites -- or doesn't bother justifying it at all, it just does it.
"Investigations" by the United States or Israel into these frequently repeated actions are typically farces which exist solely to exonerate those who conducted the operations. In any rational world they would be considered war crimes.
But we are not in a rational world.
We are in a world of illusion and deception, in which literally any presence or action -- or lack of action -- can be interpreted as a "threat" to Imperial forces, and such "threats" can be/will be suppressed with lethal force. There's nothing rational about it. It's all "gut" and "perception," illusion and deception. And above all, it's force protection. From phantoms.
I've compared these incidents with domestic police actions which result in death and destruction. It literally does not matter whether there is an actual threat involved in police use of lethal force. All that matters at law is that there is a perception of a threat -- or simply reports that there is a threat -- for domestic police forces to justify use of lethal force.
False or inaccurate reports are sufficient.
Thus, for example, John Crawford III and Tamir Rice were killed by police on the basis of false/inaccurate reports of 911 callers and dispatchers. It didn't matter what Crawford and Rice were really doing, nor did it matter that they weren't threats of any kind. All that mattered was that they were suspected and reported as potentially threatening.
That is sufficient justification for police use of lethal force in this country, and it is sufficient justification for military action overseas -- such as the constant drone attacks on "suspected militants," the frequent attacks on wedding parties by US forces and their allies, and the recent deadly attack on the Kunduz hospital.
In a rational world, they would be crimes against humanity.
But we are not in a rational world.
[Maybe some links later; busy day today.]
They were killed and wounded during a nighttime attack from above. At least one US AC-130 and possibly one or more helicopter gunships fired on the hospital's main building around 2am, largely destroying the hospital and causing significant death and injury to patients (some of whom are reported to have "burned in their beds") and to staff.
MSF has called the attack a war crime.
The Defense Department has characterized it as an "accident," or perhaps a "tragic" incident justified by reports of Taliban fighters using the site to fire on American and/or Afghan forces operating in the area to retake Kunduz from Taliban insurgents, yadda yadda.
MSF insists that there were no Taliban fighters on the grounds or in the hospital, and there was no firing from the compound before or during the attack.
Of course under the shadowy Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan and other theaters of our many overseas wars, it doesn't matter whether the reports of Taliban fighters using the grounds and hospital as positions from which to fire on American and Afghan forces are true or false. It only matters that there are reports of suspected enemy presence or action from such and such a location to unleash Death From Above. Confirmation is never required as actual confirmation might jeopardize a troop on the ground. Can't have that. Good heavens no.
Force protection is All Important. The deaths of untold numbers of civilians, and the destruction of protected infrastructure such as hospitals, power plants, water treatment and pumping plants, etc, matters far less (actually not at all) compared to the necessity to protect the force.
Such death and destruction is patently a war crime under various treaties, but it's routine in the US pursuit of Empire, and there is no plausible prosecutorial means to hold the Imperial forces liable. Much the same is true of Israel's actions in its attacks on Gaza. Israel routinely attacks and destroys protected sites and infrastructure, killing untold numbers of civilians and other protected individuals, and Israel justifies it through reference to reports of enemy action at or near these sites -- or doesn't bother justifying it at all, it just does it.
"Investigations" by the United States or Israel into these frequently repeated actions are typically farces which exist solely to exonerate those who conducted the operations. In any rational world they would be considered war crimes.
But we are not in a rational world.
We are in a world of illusion and deception, in which literally any presence or action -- or lack of action -- can be interpreted as a "threat" to Imperial forces, and such "threats" can be/will be suppressed with lethal force. There's nothing rational about it. It's all "gut" and "perception," illusion and deception. And above all, it's force protection. From phantoms.
I've compared these incidents with domestic police actions which result in death and destruction. It literally does not matter whether there is an actual threat involved in police use of lethal force. All that matters at law is that there is a perception of a threat -- or simply reports that there is a threat -- for domestic police forces to justify use of lethal force.
False or inaccurate reports are sufficient.
Thus, for example, John Crawford III and Tamir Rice were killed by police on the basis of false/inaccurate reports of 911 callers and dispatchers. It didn't matter what Crawford and Rice were really doing, nor did it matter that they weren't threats of any kind. All that mattered was that they were suspected and reported as potentially threatening.
That is sufficient justification for police use of lethal force in this country, and it is sufficient justification for military action overseas -- such as the constant drone attacks on "suspected militants," the frequent attacks on wedding parties by US forces and their allies, and the recent deadly attack on the Kunduz hospital.
In a rational world, they would be crimes against humanity.
But we are not in a rational world.
[Maybe some links later; busy day today.]
Friday, May 9, 2014
They're Cowards
Reports and some video have been coming in from Mariupol, where apparently more than 100 have been killed and many hundreds injured when so-called "troops" opened fire on a large crowd, estimated at ten thousand or more, gathered to celebrate Victory Day.
The only videos I've seen so far are various angles of the scene shown in the previous post, in Mariupol.
This one shows the situation leading up to the shootings in the video (it gets pretty gory, so be warned):
While the view is clouded by something smeared on the camera lens, you can see the scene well enough to note that as the camera person gets closer to the intersection, a soldier is seen crouching down at the corner of a building while a young man in civilian clothes taunts him. Across the street there is another soldier who is shouting. APCs rattle by, and the man in civilian clothes goes to the middle of the street as they do, arms out, hurling taunts. Somebody shoots him and he crumbles to the street. Others go to his aid, and he's out of view of the camera for some time. I can't tell who shot him but I suspect it was the first soldier he was taunting.
The crowd is angry and shouting. Soldiers are trying to get across the street. There is what sounds like a lot of gunfire. In another video of the same scene, a man in a suit who is photographing the situation near the kiosk is shot in the leg. Another man is apparently shot near the kiosk. A fourth man is seen lying on the street beside the cafe tent, and a fifth is seen lying in a pool of blood in front of the tent entrance. He's been shot through the head.
Still the crowd taunts the soldiers, who by this time have run away. They're complete cowards.
Which has something to do with why members of the APD feel they must shoot so many suspects.
They're terrified of the people. Frightened to death, and they believe that if they don't shoot first, they will be killed.
This is the mindset they're conditioned to believe, and they do.
But it is the mindset of cowards, terrified of their own shadows, and if they didn't have a gun, most of them would shit their pants.
On the other hand, the people in the streets taunting and insulting the cowardly shooters are truly brave, and much the same scene plays out time and again at the sites of police shootings.
The same conditioning, the same mindset, the same cowardice on the part of the armed, the same bravery on the part of the unarmed.
The only videos I've seen so far are various angles of the scene shown in the previous post, in Mariupol.
This one shows the situation leading up to the shootings in the video (it gets pretty gory, so be warned):
While the view is clouded by something smeared on the camera lens, you can see the scene well enough to note that as the camera person gets closer to the intersection, a soldier is seen crouching down at the corner of a building while a young man in civilian clothes taunts him. Across the street there is another soldier who is shouting. APCs rattle by, and the man in civilian clothes goes to the middle of the street as they do, arms out, hurling taunts. Somebody shoots him and he crumbles to the street. Others go to his aid, and he's out of view of the camera for some time. I can't tell who shot him but I suspect it was the first soldier he was taunting.
The crowd is angry and shouting. Soldiers are trying to get across the street. There is what sounds like a lot of gunfire. In another video of the same scene, a man in a suit who is photographing the situation near the kiosk is shot in the leg. Another man is apparently shot near the kiosk. A fourth man is seen lying on the street beside the cafe tent, and a fifth is seen lying in a pool of blood in front of the tent entrance. He's been shot through the head.
Still the crowd taunts the soldiers, who by this time have run away. They're complete cowards.
Which has something to do with why members of the APD feel they must shoot so many suspects.
They're terrified of the people. Frightened to death, and they believe that if they don't shoot first, they will be killed.
This is the mindset they're conditioned to believe, and they do.
But it is the mindset of cowards, terrified of their own shadows, and if they didn't have a gun, most of them would shit their pants.
On the other hand, the people in the streets taunting and insulting the cowardly shooters are truly brave, and much the same scene plays out time and again at the sites of police shootings.
The same conditioning, the same mindset, the same cowardice on the part of the armed, the same bravery on the part of the unarmed.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Killing Fields in Cairo
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| Another Massacre in Cairo |
So the Egyptian military -- after already massacring hundreds of protesters against the coup that overthrew elected president Mohamed Morsi and dissolved the elected parliament and suspended the ratified constitution -- has now "cleared" the protest camps of Morsi supporters, causing the death and injury of hundreds more and the arrest of thousands, many of whom will likely... disappear.
No doubt the Neo-Liberal forces behind the Egyptian coup against the Morsi government are hailing the carnage as a good job. Needed to be done. Something to teach the upstart Brotherhood a permanent lesson.
"Democracy is messy." Sometimes bloody, too.
Welcome to the New World Order.
Any questions?
These continuing massacres in Cairo and throughout Egypt are not just a message to those upstart "Brotherhood" people, oh no.
Make no mistake, the message is meant to resonate globally.
We are no longer in the era of: "Get out of line, the man come and take you away."
Oh, no.
We're now fully into the era of: "Protest your fate and you may just die. Too bad, so sad."
Let Freedom Ring!
Thursday, December 13, 2012
The Bradley Manning Thing and Starship Troopers
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| Klendathu -- It's an Ugly System, a Bug System |
"Starship Troopers" has been on heavy rotation one of the broadcast movie channels here, and I watched it the other day and had a good hoot over it. When the United States went to WAR!!! some years ago -- good heavens, more than a decade now -- I and others made many comparisons between the propaganda that suffuses Paul Verhoeven's film and what Americans were being subjected to in order to whip them to a frenzy of Muslim-Bug-Hate, and we commented about how much the images of the WAR!!! ON TERRA! and the WARR!!!! ON KLENDATHU! resembled one another. It was as if we were being made to live out this mockery of Heinlein's adolescent fantasy as re-configured by Verhoeven. Truth was stranger than fiction.
The book was published in 1959; the movie -- the original, not the sequels -- was released in 1997 not long after the Bosnia campaign; the WAR!!!! against Klendathu, er, Afghanistan was initiated in 2001 and quickly spread to Iraq and has now embroiled much of the Middle East and parts of Africa with no end in sight... here we are, so many years down the line, and so many young people can't really remember a time when we weren't fighting Klendathu/Bugs for some reason.
We have always been fighting Klendathu/Bugs in a way.
A young soldier named Bradley Manning is to be court-martialed for turning over massive amounts of military and State Department documents and communications, some of it classified, to WikiLeaks some years ago (we've lost track of the exact timelines now), a trial that has been delayed for an extraordinarily long time as the sides prepare and maneuver. The most recent phase involved a hearing on the conditions of Manning's confinement at the Quantico brig, conditions which were ridiculous when they weren't appalling, but conditions which are faced by tens of thousands of domestic prisoners, including children, every day. The hoopla over Manning's confinement conditions seemed to me to be over the top, in part because so many prisoners in America face similar conditions, and many of those prisoners have not been convicted any more than Manning has been convicted. There simply is no outcry, there's hardly any recognition that atrocious, indeed torturous, confinement conditions are standard operating procedure in America's vast and expanding prison/industrial complex.
Confinement conditions in Marine brigs have been notorious for brutality and psychological terror for decades. What was done to Manning, while atrocious, was actually mild compared to the treatment of some prisoners held in the brig for various offenses both pre and post conviction. I've reported previously that a relative faced far worse conditions, and for far longer, than Manning when he was held in the brig for four years on what I believe was either a completely bogus or completely political (ie: Marine Corps politics) criminal charge. This is how a formidable and corrupt system works and has worked for many long years. Where is the outcry?
Quite simply, there is no outcry beyond the highly select cohort of individuals who truly care about these things. Manning should not have been treated the way he was at Quantico, nor should anyone else face such treatment and worse in any part of the American Gulag, but the conditions faced by those not named Manning wasn't part of the general conversation and still isn't. Americans by and large are in complete denial about the prison/industrial system that holds millions of its citizens and foreigners under often appalling conditions, day in and day out, year in and year out. It is an out of control punishment system that gets more out of control and brutal as time goes by.
The hearing over Manning's confinement conditions has concluded; it was covered by Kevin Gozstola over at FDL and a few other reporters, notably not including the New York Times until a public outcry (and a rather harsh column by the paper's public editor) embarrassed the Gray Lady's Powers That Be enough to send someone to witness part of one day's testimony -- and then write inaccurately about it. There might be a ruling on the manner of Manning's Quantico stay sometime in January, but I won't hold my breath because this case has been delayed so many times for such a long time over all sorts of things, while Manning himself cools his heels at the Ft. Leavenworth facility awaiting a disposition that may never come.
Manning is accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, some of which were classified "Secret" and above, but many of which were unclassified. The intranet system from which this material was obtained was not secure; there was little effort to make it secure for months after the alleged leak allegedly via Manning and his all-purpose thumb drive. Consequently, part of the defense argument has been that Manning's actions really couldn't constitute such a big security breech -- because there was so little security to begin with.
The argument of many of Manning's defenders has been that Manning is a Hero and therefore should not be subjected to... well, what, actually? Accusation? Trial? Law itself?
The central document that was released through WikiLeaks as a consequence of the actions Manning is accused of is the "Collateral Murder" helicopter gun-camera video of the slaughter of some dozen or so Iraqis gathered on a street that took place in New Baghdad in 2009 (October, if I recall correctly). It is classic "Death From Above" war-porn and could have been straight out of a movie like "Starship Troopers." It was hideous and disgusting to anyone with a shred of conscience. And it was run in heavy rotation on all the propaganda news outlets for weeks in April of 2010, in a sort of orgy of bloodletting visuals that led to fist-pumping celebrations of American Might.
As I pointed out at the time, this video, while horrible to witness, is one of any number of similar extermination-porn videos, American "Death From Above" videos, many of which were proudly released by the military itself. They're available on YouTube for anyone with an internet connection to view anytime they want. They are all very similar, very hideous, and very disgusting. Yet they caused little sensation and no general outcry when they were released. Like the "Collateral Murder" video, they inspired pride not revulsion in many if not most of those who saw them.
It was only when Manning allegedly provided WikiLeaks with the "Collateral Murder" video that a small but vocal segment of the public spoke out, claiming War Crimes and perfidy in the conduct of the Iraq Occupation, and by extension in the conduct of the various imperial wars of aggression in general. The vocal segment that spoke out against the slaughter depicted in the "Collateral Murder" video is now mostly focused on the outrage of the Drone Campaigns that have been expanded under Obama. While the outrage is not misplaced, the focus may well be far too narrow.
There are almost too many individual incidents of "Death From Above" during the constant WAR!!!! against "Klendathu" to count. The incidents are grotesque, but at some point the underlying issue needs addressing.
These incidents are happening because Our Government is intent on pursuing an Imperial Expansion objective, one that has been determined by those few individuals and interests that own and control the Government. The People never agreed to this Imperial Project; they are largely ignorant that it is going on. The People have no say in these matters in any case.
"Klendathu" has always been Our Enemy, and so it is today. If we want the incidents to stop, we have to stop the objectification of our Bug-Enemies, and furthermore we must stop the Imperial Expansion Project that allows and requires this endless horror to go on.
I don't know whether Manning had or has any of that in mind. He's a complex character whose motivations have never been entirely clear. At one time, it was claimed that his "torture" at Quantico was undertaken to extract information from him regarding WikiLeaks. That tack seems to have been dropped as it became clear that his treatment at Quantico was done because it could be done and not for any other reason at all. The brig commanders are brutal and not very bright thugs. Hello? This is news somehow?
WikiLeaks has largely faded (which is a whole other story). The Manning Thing was ostentatiously ignored by the New York Times, which was the exclusive US publisher of the WikiLeaks trove (allegedly from Manning) at one time. Coverage of the Manning Thing is still spotty. Imperial wars of aggression continue with occasional adjustments.
We are still at war with Klendathu. The Bugs are Still Out There...
"Death From Above"
[Sorry about the absence of links, have to see if I can add some later...]
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Could Be A Good Thing
Seems that West Point Cadet Blake Page has resigned from the Academy and has offered a blistering critique of the military's heavy investment in proselytizing Christian evangelical religious belief.
Interesting.
Though the United States is ostensibly a secular nation with no national religion or religious test to hold office -- or to be in the military -- the fact is that some 80%-90% of Americans profess religious faith of some sort and the evangelical sects (which long ago all but took over the military) have been in the vanguard of a religious "revival" among the high ranking military officers who set the tone for religious practice and belief among the troops. If someone actually looked into this phenomenon more deeply than I can, they would probably see fairly quickly that the religious belief within the military (as it is among the government functionaries in general) is not quite standard evangelical Christianity. It has its own peculiar nature, and if it hasn't already done so, it could well turn into a separate sect of its own, serving only those who are initiates into its mysteries. Not unlike the legendary Opus Dei among Catholics...
Blake Page, former West Point Cadet, is apparently out to expose the whole rotten edifice of military/religious indoctrination, and boldly claims that most of the hierarchy at West Point is in violation of their oath of office and is therefore engaged in criminal conduct.
Well. Isn't that special?
Criminals. Violations of the Oath.
Indeed.
Americans by and large are unaware of just how separate the military and the government it ostensibly serves are from the People. Since the end of the draft in the 1970's, the military has separated itself more and more from the People. The government has taken a somewhat different route, but it has arrived are pretty much the same destination, barricading itself behind protective security walls, traps and personnel to ensure that the People are kept at bay. This withdrawal and separation in some respects enables the government and the military to adopt a kind of "sacred" mantle which in turn enables the injection of a quasi-religion into these ostensibly secular realms.
I've long been leery of the nearly overwhelming worship of the military in this country, as if it were itself a sacred institution. It's nothing of the kind. And then we have the notion of the near-sacred persons of our high government officials, from the President on down. It's off-putting on the one hand, but it's also completely inappropriate for a society of citizens as opposed to subjects. Yet Americans are becoming subjects -- and participatory citizenship is made more and more difficult if not altogether impossible for many millions.
It's not going to be easy to reverse any of this, particularly in light of the national religious fervor that bids fair to overwhelm common sense.
But it's a start...
Interesting.
Though the United States is ostensibly a secular nation with no national religion or religious test to hold office -- or to be in the military -- the fact is that some 80%-90% of Americans profess religious faith of some sort and the evangelical sects (which long ago all but took over the military) have been in the vanguard of a religious "revival" among the high ranking military officers who set the tone for religious practice and belief among the troops. If someone actually looked into this phenomenon more deeply than I can, they would probably see fairly quickly that the religious belief within the military (as it is among the government functionaries in general) is not quite standard evangelical Christianity. It has its own peculiar nature, and if it hasn't already done so, it could well turn into a separate sect of its own, serving only those who are initiates into its mysteries. Not unlike the legendary Opus Dei among Catholics...
Blake Page, former West Point Cadet, is apparently out to expose the whole rotten edifice of military/religious indoctrination, and boldly claims that most of the hierarchy at West Point is in violation of their oath of office and is therefore engaged in criminal conduct.
Well. Isn't that special?
Criminals. Violations of the Oath.
Indeed.
Americans by and large are unaware of just how separate the military and the government it ostensibly serves are from the People. Since the end of the draft in the 1970's, the military has separated itself more and more from the People. The government has taken a somewhat different route, but it has arrived are pretty much the same destination, barricading itself behind protective security walls, traps and personnel to ensure that the People are kept at bay. This withdrawal and separation in some respects enables the government and the military to adopt a kind of "sacred" mantle which in turn enables the injection of a quasi-religion into these ostensibly secular realms.
I've long been leery of the nearly overwhelming worship of the military in this country, as if it were itself a sacred institution. It's nothing of the kind. And then we have the notion of the near-sacred persons of our high government officials, from the President on down. It's off-putting on the one hand, but it's also completely inappropriate for a society of citizens as opposed to subjects. Yet Americans are becoming subjects -- and participatory citizenship is made more and more difficult if not altogether impossible for many millions.
It's not going to be easy to reverse any of this, particularly in light of the national religious fervor that bids fair to overwhelm common sense.
But it's a start...
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