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How the U.S. Army Kills Its Own Soldiers
A horrifying,
exclusive report from JoAnn Wypijewski on the grim secrets of
Fort Sill, Oklahoma. How a sadistic drill sergeant tortured basic
trainees, amid brutal indifference that led to the death on March
19,2006,of 21-year-old PFC Matthew Scarano. Dead Movement Marching? Cockburn and St Clair
assess the failures of the national antiwar groups, even as popular
opposition to the war tops 60 per cent. Stalin or Confucius? Chris Reed on
the Secrets of the Garden of Bliss, otherwise known as North
Korea.CounterPunch
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Now!
Let us suppose that you are
a soldier.
At bottom, you have adopted the ethic:
from time to time people need to be killed
because, in certain places, at certain times,
they live in a moral vacuum.
Additionally, you defend the U.S.
A moral vacuum, like other
vacuums,
is hated by nature and bound to be filled,
in this case, by your bullets and bombs.
You are not a cynic. You just
feel this way.
It's among your deepest beliefs.
You want your killing to be good killing,
filling, basically, moral vacuums,
alternatively, or additionally,
knocking out threats to the USA.
So there you are in the military,
a young man, or a young woman,
or later on, maybe, middle-aged,
intending, not in any way wrong,
to see the world and have a career,
perhaps raise a family adventurously.
You mean to make a good job
of things
and serve your civilian masters,
because fundamentally, your higher values
are Democracy and the USA--
a right way of living that pits your strength
against all that's wrong in the name of good.
Along come certain civilian
masters
that treat you as if expendable.
The wars you go to seem to lack purpose,
at least, befitting your higher goals
that rationalize your deepest conviction:
from time to time people need to be killed.
You're sitting around one day
on your arms,
not liking several parts of your job,
noticing some of your friends lack legs,
or eyes, or hands, or even life,
and you find it all slightly depressing.
Even the lucky ones left intact,
like you, would seem to have something wrong.
Your reputation has been besmirched:
the public thinks you are torturers
and kidnappers, unlawful assassins,
high-tech villains who hammer the weak,
why, some of the fighting that's done overseas
is done through drones that are run from Nevada--
warriors who keep seven thousand miles
between themselves and people they kill!
That isn't brave, for heaven's sake!--
at night they go home to their swimming pools.
So you know there are grounds for suspicion.
But you, yourself, are quite
innocent,
and it hurts you deeply that people think
that being a soldier lately is suspect,
almost as much as being a priest.
They think you live in a moral vacuum!
The thought occurs to you:
this isn't right!
I hate all this! This is not what I meant!
And if anyone seriously needs to be killed
it is those civilians using my friends,
and using me like we didn't count!--
or if we do, it is one two three,
as in dollars or jeeps or uniforms
they pretty much use as they like!
You suddenly feel like a coup
d'état,
but it's early days and you're willing to wait
until somebody else wants to bring it up
like vomit on perfectly shiny shoes.
The countries in black spread
across the map.
(Aggression: Japanese in China
Italians in Ethiopia
Germans in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland
brave Finns resisting Russia)
In our 6th grade class Miss
Ruggli
told us wonderful stories
of these countries she had seen.
It seemed very real
history continuing before our
eyes:
41, 42, 43, 44, 45.
We believed in none of the
justifying lies
so like those of our government today.
In black and white aggression was visible.
IT from darkness nothingness
imagined gas heat light
Bang!
Expanding matter light
cools rocks dust stars
Bang!
Electric zaps the soup
amoeba shiver sex charge
Bang!
Coconuts crushed by hominids
with crude stone tools
Bang!
Ego, I, Me
Bang!
Pharoahs, Caesars, Presidents...
cannot exist as animals
with animal needs, desires
and IT's imagination of
eternal light and SELF
without extinction on and on amen
Bang!
Power of synthetic suns
unleashed by ego I me
It-animals imagine
IT as "god"
will save us all
Hush!
Silence over deep
darkness nothingness
IT moves forever conscious
of ITs on and on
Substantiating Evidence
(part 1)
Impeaching with the Resident
by MORT SUBIET
Mort Subiet: You and your
Residential administration have been accused
of abuses of power and corruption, warrant-less wiretapping of
citizens,
misstatement of facts and figures, manipulation of intelligence
reports,
aide scandals leaking covert identities, aggressively waging
preemptive
war, countenancing torture, and evangelized retaliations against
your
critics. What do you have to say about all of this?
The Resident: "Getting uh, back to, uh, this, I've got
lots of sleeping
equanimity and optimistic diplomatic sloganeering reconstruction
strategy
on my mind these days. Please, no hand gestures -- I refuse
to make
decisions based on dead American troops. I am confident that
I'm
optimistic and I'm going to announce it on the Terrorist Surveillance
Program -- I don't want to keep repeating myself."
Mort Subiet: What exactly
does this mean?
The Resident: "National
doctrines of preemptive war bring changes around
the world. This expands the framework of containment and we
certainty
can't afford to stand idly by at news conferences. We have to
understand
that preemption underscores a more thematic strategy while we
hedge against
other possibilities. Specialists in the field tell me not to
waste my time
and just subdivide the deaths into categories.
Mort Subiet: Is there any
substantial evidence for your impeachment?
The Resident: "Eaves dropping talk radio mishmash. When
the moment of
truth comes I and my administration will be ready. Violence
is encouraging
progress because we've got a strategy where everything you may
have heard is
simply not true. My job is to explain my mind. I'm going to
say it again,
see, I'm telling you what's on my mind. Do we really have to
get into to
this impeachment thing?"
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.