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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 Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Today's Stories

March 27, 2006

Patrick Cockburn
War Crime in a Mosque

March 25 / 26, 2006

Alexander Cockburn
Why There's No Strategy to End This War

Patrick Cockburn
The Battle for Baghdad: It's Already Begun

Ralph Nader
Bush's Divorce from Reality

Christopher Reed
Slave Labor and Hell Ships: Mitsubishi Awaits Judgment for Its War Crimes

Jeff Ballinger
Memo to Walter Mosley: the Crisis in Black Leadership

Joseph Massad
Blaming the Israel Lobby

Brian Cloughley
The Fifth Afghan War

Chris Floyd
Death in the Village of Isahaqi

Elaine Cassel
Abortion Politics: The FDA and Plan B

Dave Zirin
Death Row Talks Back to Etan Thomas

John Chuckman
Sorry, Prime Minister, Afghanistan is Not Canada's War

Sharon Smith
"Si Se Puede!": On Chicago's Streets

Christopher Fons
A City With Latinos

Chris Kromm
Coretta Scott King a Communist? There's a History Here

John Bomar
Neurotic-in-Chief: Bush's "Change of Course"

Ron Jacobs
More Than Just a Band

Maymanah Farhat
What MoMA Does to "Islamic" Art

St. Clair / Walker / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Harley, Davies, Engel and Subiet

Website of the Weekend
Peacecast

 

March 24, 2006

Cockburn / Sengupta / Duff
How the CPT Hostages were Freed

P. Sainath
Bribe or Die

Todd Chretien
Jim Crow Goes Fishing: the Racist War on Immigrants

Marty Omoto
The Other California

Michael Carmichael
Islamophobia at Downing Street: Tony Blair's Bipolarity

Peter Phillips
Impeachment Movement Grows; Media Yawns

Gabriel Kolko
The US Empire vs. Reality

Website of the Day
Music for Peace

 

March 23, 2006

Charles V. Peña
Bush's Pro-Terrorism Defense Budget

Joe DeRaymond
El Salvador 2006: a Broken Nation

Robert Fisk
"US Authorities Say..."

Jonathan Cook
The Emerging Jewish Consensus in Israel

Tom Engelhardt
Whatever Happened to Congress?: an Interview with Chalmers Johnson

Joshua Frank
Political Lemmings: the Democrats and the Precipice

Norman Solomon
The Ultimate Scapegoat: Blaming the Media for Bad War News

Robert Fitch / Joe Allen
An Exchange on the State of Organized Labor

Patrick Cockburn
Kirkuk's Dr. Death

CounterPunch News Service
On the Proper Way to Address a Bible-Waving Republican State Senator from Maryland

Website of the Day
Bird-Dogging Kerry

 

March 22, 2006

David MacMichael
Iranian Nuclear Showdown: an Unnecessary Crisis

Juan Santos
Brown Skin, Yellow Star: Making Latinos Illegal

Paul Craig Roberts
Hollow Nation: Americans Don't Live Here Anymore

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq's My Lai?: Shooting Any Iraqi Who Moves

Ramzy Baroud
The Jericho Raid

Jason Leopold
The Mysterious "Official One": Woodward's Plame-Leak Deep Throat

Dennis Perrin
Killer Lies from Cheney's Harlot

William Blum
The Cuban Punching Bag

Jeffrey St. Clair
Contract Casino

Website of the Day
Bird Flu: Will It Cross Over?

 

March 21, 2006

Paul Craig Roberts
Bush's Delusional Speech

Winslow Wheeler
Lipstick on the Pig: the Fiasco of Congressional Earmark Reform

Tom Engelhardt
Cold Warrior in a Strange Land: an Interview with Chalmers Johnson

Arnold Oliver
To the Guy Who Called Me a Traitor: Dissent and the Iraq War

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
When Black Cops Go Bad: the Killing of Elio Carrion

Mike Whitney
Death Squad Democracy

William A. Cook
Israeli Human Rights: Starve the Palestinians

Sophia A. McLennen
Assault on Higher Education: the Conservative Push for the Right Student

 

March 20, 2006

Paul Craig Roberts
A Collapsing Presidency

Dave Lindorff
Howard Dean Tells CounterPunch: DNC No Foe of Impeachment

Ralph Nader
The DNC's "Grassroots Agenda": Howard Dean's Plea for Advice

Diane Christian
License to Lie: Over to You, Dante

Jeff Halper
"To Hell with All of You": the Power of Saying No

Harry Browne
Unhappy St. Patrick's Day: Bush's Crackdown on Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein

Norman Solomon
Why are We Here?: Is There a Right Way to Wage a Wrong War?

Patrick Cockburn
Death Squads on the Prowl; Iraq Convulsed by Fear

Website of the Day
Abugate

 

March 18 / 19, 2006

Cockburn / St. Clair
Three Years On: Where's the Resistance Here on the Home Front?

Werther
Bombs and Butchers: "Where Do We Get Such Men?"

Chris Kromm
Katrina Aid Package: Much Too Little; Much Too Late

Patrick Cockburn
Halabja: Kurds Destroy Monument to Victims of Saddam's Poison Gas Attack

Elaine Cassel
Abortion Politics and Animus for Women: Can Justice Kennedy be Swayed?

S. Brian Willson
Iraq Vets and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Fred Gardner
The War on Kids

Brian Cloughley
General Insanity: the Prevarications of Gen. Peter Pace

Laura Carlsen
Challenging Disparity: Toward a New US Policy in Latin America

Eamon Martin
Life in the Shadows of the Empire: Mysterious Photographers of Nothing

Julie Hilden
Free Speech in the Classroom: Teachers Don't Enjoy Enough Legal Protection

Alison Weir
So Much for "Sunshine Week": AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy

Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Krieger, Louise, and Engek

Website of the Weekend
Are the Elites Turning Against the Effects of the Israel Lobby?

 

March 17, 2006

Eduardo Galeano
Abracadabra: Uruguay's Desaparecidos Begin to Appear

Greg Moses
Bush and Nuclear Preemption: Do You Feel Safe With This Man's Finger on the Button?

Richard Falk / David Krieger
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is Dying: What Now?

Cindy and Craig Corrie
Three Ways to Remember Rachel

Amira Hass
Hamas's Haniyeh: "I Never Sent Anyone on a Suicide Mission"

Mike Marqusee
Reasons to March

James Petas and Robin Eastman-Abaya
Philippines: the Killing Fields of Asia

Website of the Day
Black Shamrock

 

March 16, 2006

Norman Solomon
Hook, Line and Sinker: War-Loving Pundits

Tom Philpott
Neoliberalism at the Garden Gate: Community Farming in LA

Heather Gray
Anne Braden: the South's Rebel Without a Pause

Amira Hass
Is Hamas Playing into the Hands of Israeli Hardliners?

Missy Comley Beattie
Dangerous-to-Society Women: Locked Up in the Tombs

Sen. Russell Feingold
President Bush has Broken the Law; He Must be Held Accountable

Lucinda Marshall
President Ken Doll: Bush Insults Women on Intl. Women's Day

Andrew Bosworth
From the Man Who Voted Against Katrina Aid: Joe Barton's War on CITGO

Clancy Sigal
In Celebration of Dachau's 73rd Anniversary, Halliburton Gets Concentration Camp Contract

Website of the Day
Help Rebuild the New Orleans Public Library


March 15, 2006

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Raid on the Jericho Jail

Winslow Wheeler
Hiding the Cost of War: Paying for Iraq with Supplemental Funding

Diane Christian
Sharon's Stroke

Ron Jacobs
New Tenants for Abu Ghraib?: a Cell for Kissinger and Haig

Missy Comley Beattie
How Many Brinks to Pass?

Jared Bernstein
The Minority Wealth Gap

Noam Chomsky
The Crumbling Empire

Website of the Day
French Students Reclaim the Streets of Paris

 

March 14, 2006

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
No Requiem for a Black Conservative: the Fall of Claude Allen

Dave Lindorff
Why the Gitmo Tribunals are a Bad Idea: Exhibit A, t he Moussaoui Case

Kevin Zeese
Divide and Rule in Iraq Gone Awry

Todd Chretien
Counting the Dead in Iraq: Why is the Left Understating the Carnage?

Jason Kunin
Canada in Afghanistan: "We're Here Because We're Here"

Thomas Palley
The Economics of Outsourcing

Cockburn / St. Clair
Pages from the Liberals' War

Website of the Day
Golf Courses and Swimming Pools

 

March 13, 2006

Uri Avnery
The Missing Word

Dave Lindorff
Extra, Extra! Media Reports on Censure Motion

Mike Whitney
South Dakota's Taliban: the Fanatics are on the Loose

David Green
Questions of Solidarity: Blacks and Jews in Neo-Con America

Jeremy Scahill
Rest Easy, Bill Clinton: Slobo Can't Talk Any More

Mike Ferner
Up Against the Wall, Son: Hungering for Justice During My First Congressional Testimony

Corey Harris
Memories of Ali Farka Touré

Paul Craig Roberts
Killing Off Milosevic: Was Serbia a Practice Run for Iraq?

Website of the Day
Prayer Flags for Peace


March 11 / 12, 2006

Alexander Cockburn
Democrats: When the War Was Lost

Ralph Nader
Bush at the Tipping Point

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Did Bush Destroy Iraq?

Ben Tripp
My Night at the Oscars: the Happy People Speak Out

John Strausbaugh
The Cowboys and the Village Voice: Alt Press Flagship Goes Corporate

Landau / Hassen
Why "We" Fight "Their" Wars

Robert Bryce
A Thousand Pages of Rage

Gary Leupp
Why They Really Think They Must Defeat Iran

Fred Gardner
"But He's Good on Our Issue"

Ron Jacobs
Condi and Iran: Folly, Tragedy and Farce

Jonathan Scott
Science Fiction's Black Oracle: the Genius and Courage of Octavia Butler

Ramzy Baroud
Who Will Stop Bush's Militant Militarists?

Jordan Flaherty
Gitmo on the Mississippi: Life Under the Klan Wasn't This Bad

John Chuckman
Parable of the Hatchet: the Fallacy of Nation-Building in Afghanistan

Joe Allen
Smearing Ron Carey and the TDU: Bob Fitch's Hatchet Job

Julia Kendlbacher
Amazonia: Where All Life Matters

St. Clair / Walker / Pollack / Vest
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Hassen, Harley, Ford and Subiet

Website of the Weekend
No Hay Ser Humano Ilegal

 

March 10, 2006

Ben Rosenfeld
The Great Green Scare and the Fed's Case Against Rod Coronado: a War on the First Amendment

Lila Rajiva
The Gitmo Documents: Miller, Boykin, Cambone and Feith

Saree Makdisi
From Rachel Corrie to Richard Rogers: the Wall, the Javits Center and the Bullying of an Architect

Elena Shore
FBI Grills US Professor Over Support for Venezuela

Joshua Frank
How the Green Party Slays Their Own

Dave Zirin
Lynching Barry Bonds

Aura Bogado
An Interview with Subcomandate Marcos

 

March 9, 2006

John Walsh
Neocon Daniel Pipes Advocates Civil War in Iraq as Strategic Policy

Annie Zirin
Leftwing Generals: the Dark Side of Liberal Imperialism

Brian McKenna
We All Live in Poletown Now: GM and the Corporate Uses of Eminent Domain

Chris Floyd
Scar Tissue: How the Bushes Brought Bedlam to Iraq

Rachard Itani
"Over There": Iraq as Soap Opera

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Action Thing

Wylie Harris
Immigration and Jeffersonian Democracy: Free Borders Make Good Neighbors

Alexander Cockburn
Ex-State Department Security Officer Charges Pre-9/11 Cover-Up

Website of the Day
About Pace: Expelling Anti-War Students

 

March 8, 2006

Patrick Bond
The Loans of Mass Destruction: Wolfowitz's Anti-Corruption Hoax at the World Bank

Brian Concannon, Jr.
Elusive Victories in Haiti

Pat Williams
Buyer's Remorse: Bush, the View from the Purple States

Lance Selfa
The Democrats and Dubai: the Politics of Distraction

Mokhiber / Weissman
Have You Ever Been Convicted of a Felony?

Walter Brasch
Compromising Civil Liberties

Vijay Prashad
For Them Indian Mangoes: Anatomy of an Agreement

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie: a Call to Action

 

March 7, 2006

Werther
Half a Trillion Dollars: It's an Awful Lot of Money to Make Us Less Safe and Less Free

John Blair
Dr. Strangelove is Our President: Global Peace Through Nuclear Weapons

Dave Lindorff
The Impeachment Groundswell and Bush's Last Hope: the Democrats

Mike Whitney
No Immunity: Israel's Policy of Targeted Assassination

Warren Guykema
Who is Afraid of Rachel Corrie?

Sen. Russell Feingold
Misleading Testimony About NSA Domestic Spying

Robert Jensen
Why I am a Christian (Sort Of)

Norman Solomon
Digitalized Hype: a Dazzling Smokescreen?

Bernie Dwyer
Hopeful Signs Across Latin America: an Interview with Noam Chomsky

Website of the Day
Golem Song


March 6, 2006

Ralph Nader
Bush and Katrina: "Situational Information?"

Dave Zirin
Why Did Pat Tillman Die? an Investigation Reopens

Vanessa Redgrave
Censorship of the Worst Kind: the Second Death of Rachel Corrie

Walter A. Davis
Theater, Ideology and the Censorship of "My Name is Rachel Corrie"

Joshua Frank
Down By Law: the Mysterious Case of David Cobb

Nate Mezmer
A Second Look at "Crash": More Myths About Blacks and Racist Cops

Paul Craig Roberts
America's Bleak Jobs Future

Website of the Day
Crossroads: Race, Class and Art


March 4 / 5, 2006

Alexander Cockburn
The Dubai Ports Purchase: National Insecurity, Imported or Homegrown?

Jennifer Van Bergen
Bush's NSA Spying Program Violates the Law

Steven Higgs
Dying for Their Work: Westinghouse Workers and the Highest Level of PCBs Ever Recorded

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Generals, the Legislators and the Gulfstream VIP Transports

Ron Jacobs
Stealing Back Adam's Rib

Rev. William E. Alberts
Remember Damadola

Colin Asher
Goodbye, Dubai: the Teamsters and the Ports

Fred Gardner
Denney's Law

"Pariah"
Scapegoats and Shunning: Sexual Fascism in Progressive America

John Scagliotti
Brokeback Mountain: Pain is Not Enough

Seth Sandronsky
When the White House Walks Away: Bush, Arnold and the Flood Risk in the Central Valley

Joan Roelofs
A Challenge to Rebuild the World

Arjun Makhijani
The US / India Nuclear Pact: a Bad and Dangerous Deal

Ardeshr Ommani
Destroying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Diana Barahona
An Open Letter to Freedom House: Release Info on Your Federal Grants

Ben Tripp
Bonzo, Wherefore Art Thou?

St. Clair / Socialist Worker Staff
Playlist: What We're Listening To

Poets' Basement
Engel, Davies, Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Return of Pearl Jam

March 3, 2006

Laura Carlsen
Mexico: the Power of Corruption and the Corruption of Power

John V. Whitbeck
Two States or One?

Chris Floyd
The Monolith Crumbles: Reality and Revisionism About Iran

Mohamed Hakki
Wolfowitz at the World Bank: Cronyism and Corruption

Pratyush Chandra
Bush in India: Dinner with George and Manmohan

John Scagliotti
Why are There No Real Gays in "Brokeback Mountain"?

Website of the Day
Support the IRC!

 

March 2, 2006

Paul Craig Roberts
How the Economic News is Spun

Dave Lindorff
Troops to Bush: Get Us Out of Here!

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Democracy: the Hamas Factor

Saul Landau
Halfway Down the Road to Hell

Joe Allen
The Murder of George Jackson: an Interview with His Lawyer, Stephen Bingham

Steve Shore
Berlusconi on Capitol Hill: "I Am Italy!"

Denise Boggs
Roadless and Clueless: Wilderness Logging Greenwashed by Enviro Groups

Norman Finkelstein
The Attacks on Beyond Chutzpah

Website of the Day
ScreenHead

 

March 1, 2006

Mairead Corrigan Maguire
The Human Right to a Nuclear Free World

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The India That Can No Longer Say No

Faheem Hussain
Bush in Pakistan

Antony Loewenstein
Spinning Us to War with Iran: an Aussie Perspective

Elizabeth Schulte
The Charge to Overturn Roe Has Begun

Mike Whitney
Sudan: Beware Bolton's Sudden Humanitarianism

John Ryan
Canada and the American Empire

Michael Donnelly
Brokeback Mountain: a No Love Story

Tom Reeves
Haitian Election Aftermath

Website of the Day
Mardi Gras Index: Reuilding of New Orleans Stalled

 

 

 

 

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March 27, 2006

The Honorable Stand of Ben Griffin

"I Did Not Join the British Army to Conduct American Foreign Policy"

By ROBERT BILLYARD

If there is any hope of saving Afghanistan booting out the Americans is an essential first step

"I did not join the British Army to conduct American foreign policy," said British soldier Ben Griffin, a member of the SAS-Britain's elite commando force. Griffin has resigned from the army in disgust after witnessing "dozens of illegal acts" by American troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqi' s as "untermenschen"-the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human. Griffin is not alone in making this accusation. It has been made by others. He is not the first nor will he be last combatant to register his disdain for the moral depravity surrounding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As reported in The Telegraph UK:

Mr. Griffin, 28, who spent two years with the SAS, said the American military's "gung-ho and trigger happy mentality" and tactics had completely undermined any chance of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population. He added that many innocent civilians were arrested in night-time raids and interrogated by American soldiers, imprisoned in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, or handed over to the Iraqi authorities and "most probably" tortured.

He also accused the British prime minister and government of repeatedly lying about the conduct of the war.

Griffin is no ordinary soldier. The SAS is the British equivalent of Canada' s JTF2, America's Delta Force, Green Berets and Special Forces. In World War II parlance these groups were known as commandos, they operate behind enemy lines destroying selected targets and gaining intelligence. They are trained to kill and no trick is too dirty in getting the job done.

But now as with many initiatives started with a somewhat noble purpose it appears these groups are out of control. The dark side of these forces is that they can operate under highest secrecy, with no political accountability, and no adherence to international law such as the Geneva Conventions. They can conduct clandestine warfare and torture with little accountability. Even now US Special Forces are operating in Iran.

Griffin's claims are substantiated in a NY Times article of March 20th 2006 - US abuses extend beyond Abu Ghraib- The article outlines how US Special Forces have a network of detention /torture centres established across Iraq. To avoid being detected and their activities being traced they undergo regular name changes and move under even deeper security once detected.

Griffin is the first SAS member to resign in protest. The fact that he does makes one wonder about the nature of the atrocities he has seen for the very essence of these commandos is their mental and physical toughness and their willingness to be absolutely ruthless. He has been granted an honourable discharge; no doubt because the British government wants to dodge the publicity that a court martial would generate.

It is now the stated policy of the US that it will conduct pre-emptive, simultaneous and serial warfare as necessary. Consequently we have two regional wars being waged at the same time; one becomes a precursor for the other, as still others loom on the horizon. The question has to be asked: Why, given the mess the Americans have made in Iraq would any country commit to a very similar war in Afghanistan under American direction; especially when we hear from an SAS soldier such as Griffin that the American military' s "gung ho trigger happy attitude" has blown any chance of winning the hearts and minds of Iraqi's?

The conclusion we might draw is that America's motives are not to win hearts and minds, not to liberate, but to vanquish.

Canadian General, Rick Hillier, has been traveling our country hyping the need to go to war. He feels the need to go over to Afghanistan and kill "scumbags." Maybe he is spending too much time in the company of his American counterparts.

Hillier might be reminded that the vast majority of casualties in both these wars have been civilian. Both conflicts are rife with both accidental and deliberate targeting of civilian populations. This is the era of the ignoble soldier leaving the civilian population to make the greatest sacrifice, in part, a political expediency to keep casualties to a minimum and also because a lot of remote controlled high-tech weaponry isn't very discriminating or reliable, and is too often used based on faulty intelligence.

US four star general Tommy Franks maintains there is no need to keep body counts. But of course the real reason is his press attaché won't allow it. Iraqi casualties, mainly civilian, are in the tens of thousands, and as Griffin rightly indicates "untermenschen" is an American franchise in both countries.

Afghanistan has suffered imperialist affections for the last thirty years. The country's problems started in 1978 when the US deposed the Marxist government of Noor Mohammad Taraki for no other reason than that it was Marxist. This was during the Cold War and communist paranoia was rampant. Even though Taraki's government was progressive and temporarily brought peace and stability to the country it was considered ideologically incorrect.

In the ensuing years the former USSR and the USA through their various intrigues ensured that Afghanistan remained in a constant state of war. The reason Afghanistan is in the mess it is today begins and ends largely with the reprehensible machinations of the US.

Like Iraq, the real reason Afghanistan was attacked was not because it was a threat but it was seen as an easy target. Both countries were exhausted from years of warfare. To its surprise, the US had to deal with tenacious counter-insurgencies.

Now the pacifying of Afghanistan has been turned over to NATO but this is mere window dressing. NATO troops from countries other than the United States are there only in token numbers. The vast majority of troops will still be American. Though the commander of NATO forces will be British, Lt. General David Richards, his deputy will be American. Air support will be American and the US will still maintain troops in the country not under NATO command. So even though this initiative will be under the name of NATO its real presence will still be predominantly American.

Afghans have every reason to distrust America's motives and its continued presence will be a compelling reason to fight on.

The US created this conundrum and is therefore disqualified from being part of the solution. The task of this multinational force is handicapped from the outset by the American presence. Where a UN/NATO force, excluding American forces, might succeed this is not going to happen. The US is not going to release its hold on the jugular of Afghanistan as its ultimate interest in the country is not peace and reconciliation but strategic.

On this critical occasion when the UN could be an effective instrument of mediation the US has deliberately undermined it, considering it a hindrance to its neo-imperialist ambitions.

It is apparent the solution to Afghanistan is both military and humanitarian, but by its very structure there is every indication American militarism and its "gung-ho trigger happy attitude" will continue to prevail despite NATO involvement.

As Peggy Mason of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre points out in her excellent Globe and Mail analysis:

The American approach to fighting terrorism conflates three types of activities-war fighting, peacekeeping and anti-terrorist police operations, arguably to the detriment of all three.

On the peacekeeping component the Americans get a big zero and therefore the mission ends up working at cross purposes and will therefore end in failure.

As Amyas Godfrey, a London based military analyst states; "It will take the pressure off America and the idea that America is perpetrating a war against Muslims nations." Of course, America is not perpetrating war against Muslim nations. It is simply that when Muslim nations impede America's neo-imperialist juggernaut they will be erased, reduced to cannon fodder in unconscionable numbers.

Afghanistan and Iraq become profound examples of how, when a superpower, insisting on a self-serving belligerent unilateralism, scorns international law, convention, and genuine multilateral values the result is anarchy-an anarchy which is, escalating, mutating and ominous.

There is a global hesitation to be critical of America's current behavior. It brings forth the predictable accusation of anti-Americanism but this a stupid clichéd response at a time when clearly America's actions demand censure and its motives must be regarded with greater skepticism.

Ben Griffin, like Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector who vainly tried to warn the world Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, becomes another oracle that something is seriously amiss in a deafening silence.

Amyas Godfrey also states, "Americans don't like to be under the command of other nations." This is cloying understatement. The simple reality is they won't be. It may only be a matter of time before Lt. General David Richards also declares, "I did not join the British Army to conduct American foreign policy"

Robert Billyard is an artist and writer living in Langley, British Columbia. He can be reached at: robertjb@shaw.ca



 

 

 

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