October 20, 2006
Military Commissions Act of 2006
I had no idea. No idea.
Posted by Nat at October 20, 2006 12:29 PM | TrackBackc'mon, Nat. you can trust him! He's as Republican as your former representative! and they are the good guys.
Seriously, it is scary when an assumptive moral difference makes us do bad things to them because they are bad. And inevitably, we become them, and vise versa.
Posted by: steve at October 22, 2006 07:40 PMand another thought.....
I go from your blog to my 2nd favorite, Larry James'Urban Daily. His post was ironic, but becomes a bit more machiavelian when juxtaposed to your post here. Is our government ramping up to be the big brother we all worried about 40 years ago?
Here is what Larry observed:
"Yesterday, as I walked into the post office to mail a letter, my eye caught a large banner hanging over the main entrance. The message was printed boldly in Spanish and English.
"Send money to Mexico here!" read the sign's cheerful invitation.
"Compare fees," the offer challenged those who entered and who needed to send funds back home to family members living south of our border.
Interesting.
A U. S. Government building offering financial services, for a small fee of course, to people needing to transfer assets to loved ones outside the United States. Most who use this service are undoubtedly undocumented. But, as with Social Security payments, our government won't turn away from potential collections or, in this case, customers.
Anyone see an irony? A bit of hypocrisy?
Maybe our leaders just need to hammer out a policy that is clear and fair for everyone?
Just a thought."
Larry says they don't want to lose a buck. But if they become the cheapest way to send money home, their abiliy to monitor the senders and sendees might be the real goal. As someone who lives in Guatemala, and like about 1 million of my fellows here, am supported by this cash flow, it gives me the creeps.
Jeeze, George W is turning me into a conspiracy theory paranoic.
I was waiting for someone to post the charge that Keith is a lesbian, satanist, pathological lying Shining Path veteran turncoat. But since that hasn't happened yet, I thought the words of the brother of Pat Tillman (killed by friendly fired, family lied to by the DoD) were an appropriate "ditto" (sic).
Posted on Oct 19, 2006
Pat and Kevin Tillman
Courtesy the Tillman Family
Pat Tillman (left) and his brother Kevin stand in front of a Chinook helicopter in Saudi Arabia before their tour of duty as Army Rangers in Iraq in 2003.
By Kevin Tillman
Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.
It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.
Much has happened since we handed over our voice:
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.
Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
Kevin Tillman
Posted by: Jeff at October 22, 2006 08:03 PMThat is powerful, and Kevin earned the right to have us pay attention to what he says.
having said that...I notice a slight shift in the rigth to speak as a patriot moving ever so subtly to the reasonable voices against the war.
Posted by: steve at October 23, 2006 08:07 PM