Marines www.New Ruskin College.com
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
Lecture Notes: 11-24-04
“Is no one to blame for anything then?”
---------------Hellen Schlegel, Howard’s End, by E. M. Forster
Who is to blame?
Who will take responsibility for the Marines? Where shall we begin the analysis?
The failure of the American leadership, for over 12 years, to deal with Saddam Hussein?
The young Marine who said, “This one is faking being dead, he is still breathing,” was six years old in 1991 when we should have removed Saddam Hussein in the First Gulf War. We deferred the war until he was of age. (See also how we have saved up $7.5 trillion in national debt for him as well. Look at all that we have deferred to him. We have found it more convenient to pass these problems on to him. Technically this is known as the intergenerational transfer of shit.)
He was eight years old in 1993 when the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by the Iraqi agents, who came from, and fled back to Iraq, and were protected by Iraq from extradition requests. Nothing was done then, not even when Saddam Hussein attempted to assassinate Mr. Bush (41); no we waited until this Marine was of fighting age. He was eleven when operation Bojinka was being planned in Manila. He was twelve when we finally arrested the Iraqi agent Ramsey Youseff.
Over all these years he grew up in our society, listening to the likes of Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh and the rest. Imus’ great insight, his contribution to the public discussion, was that the tape should have been erased. Now there you have moral guidance for the young Marine. Bill O’Reilly said that the Marine’s statements prior to shooting the prisoner “prove” that he was “in fear of his life.” (The next day O’Reilly said he would have been “foolish” to “exonerate” the Marine if there had not been these exculpatory statements. (Yes! Foolish. Foolish indeed.))
Beck, who condemned the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, now supports the shooting of the prisoner, and says that this will be the test to see who “really supports our troops.” (I recall wondering about Beck at the time of the Abu Ghraib story when he said that he was so upset that he wanted to “go down to the airport and spit on the returning soldiers,” who were involved in the abuse.) Lee Rogers said he expects the Marines will kill the journalist who photographed the shooting. This is what he thinks of the Marines. I will not bother with Weiner, you can imagine the insanity there. Indeed you can imagine the rest. This is how societies decline.
They shoot journalists don’t they?
What a society. So this is the social environment in which the Marine was raised, these are the men who helped create the social ethic that informed the life of that young Marine for the 18 years prior to his shipping out to Iraq. Pity the young man if he relied on the likes of these men. Pity him for all the sewage they have pumped into his young head. They have defined social deviancy down, and see to what effect.
The radio carnival barkers all think they are helping the young Marine by condoning the shooting of wounded prisoners. But of course, as is so often the case, they actually are making it worse. Time and again their idiotic arguments so inflame the public that they actually hurt the causes they profess. They are a primary reason the election was so close. Their contemptuous bloviating has kindled such a hatred that they moved a substantial portion of the 48% of the public to vote for Kerry, or rather against Bush.
And now not only do we have to do justice but with all their bluster they add another dimension, a “social statement,” that will need to be refuted. Will we now have to “make an example” out of this Marine to show the carnival barkers how wrong they are? Let us refute their falsity here, now, so that it need not be considered at the Captain’s Mast.
As civilians we can not say what is proper punishment for shooting wounded prisoners. But we can say that it is wrong. Yet this simple statement of morality, seemingly so obvious, was lacking in the bloviations of hate radio.
Do you not think young Marines are hearing their raging? Do you not think that they act on what they hear? Do they not hear Michael Weiner shouting that the Moslems are “subhumans?” Not enough for our young men to be put in a foreign land, to fight a difficult war, no that is not enough, let us turn this into a religious war!
You go to your microphones and shout out your stupid ideas, your hate filled bluster, then you retreat to the safety of your mansions, and leave the young Marine to face the court martial? In the original story it was reported that before the video taped shooting other Marines had entered the Mosque and shot two other prisoners. In the subsequent coverage these additional shootings are often not mentioned at all. None of the hate radio carnival barkers have mentioned these other shootings. Where did all these Marines get the idea that shooting wounded prisoners was acceptable? From you!
Who will take responsibility for these Marines?
Then again, maybe . . . I am wrong. Maybe this is my country? For these same twelve years that this young Marine has been growing up in America, haven’t some of these same men hectored and harassed me, driven me to my death? Perhaps they are right? . . . and I am wrong? This is America.
If someone had told me that America shoots its wounded prisoners I would have thought it a calumny. But then I reflect, that the IRS did conspire with the very criminals we were investigating. Senator Hatch was on the Imus show and did say: “I’ve heard what you do to some of your listeners.” And all the rest of you, villains and the others of you who cover up for the villains. This is America!
Are the Marines covering up the orders to shoot the prisoners? Perhaps the five prisoners were left there to bleed to death, and when they were found to be still alive . . . “this one is still breathing.” America? After all I have been through these last 12 years, I do not know anymore. As I think about it now, I did wonder about the 50 U. S. dead as against the 1,500 enemy killed? But I thought, air power? You know, firepower? Maybe I am wrong maybe hate radio is right.
Then I recall reading reports that the men of fighting age who tried to leave were not taken prisoner but were only told that they had to stay in Falujha. Why not taken prisoner? Then too at the beginning of the war deserters were turned back. They had to fight? And all these years where are the prison camps, no systematic procedures . . .why? Why all the problems at Abu Ghraib? Why when Bremer left Iraq were there no more than 9,000 prisoners, and then they released those?
Why not prisoners? Because there is no plan. The blame must rest not on this Marine or his comrades, but with the leadership.
There is no plan, no strategy, except to kill Iraqis. Notice, for example, that no effort is made to photo the dead Iraqis, or take their finger prints. Why? This is because there is no data base to be updated, or to help identify the dead. In two years we have not bothered to identify the young men of Iraq. No one thought that a census, photos, fingerprints, would be important. (For example, in order not to have large crowds at the polls, and a target for terrorists, the election could be carried out over a period of weeks, if we had a system of identification.) How can we build a country if we do not know who we are dealing with?
So we do not know even the names of the dead. We do not know who their fathers are, or who their brothers are, or their cousins and uncles. We do not know were they live. We know nothing about them. But then, if the whole of your strategy is simply to kill them why bother with all that. Right?
Well we are killing them in Iraq now. This is the whole of our plan? To “kill them over there?” This is what Mr. Bush has repeatedly said. Kill them over there. Kill them over there. That’s it. And so we send out the 18 year old Marine, and oh yes he is frustrated, who wouldn’t be, this is the whole of our strategy!
And why is this the whole of our strategy? Because a nattily dressed gentleman, who does not like explaining himself, is sitting in his oval office directing the war without being bothered by any written record, no plans, no programs, no management committees, no ministries, no administrative structure, no goals, no objectives. He has not presented to the nation, neither ours nor the Iraqis, a series of proposals or policies for the building of Iraq, nothing. He doesn’t like explaining himself.
He is negotiating his way, one day at a time. They did not want to staff out the planning because this White House likes to maintain control. Why? Are they trying to save money? Republican economy?
Bremer was appointed just in March 2003 when the tanks were just starting to Baghdad. There had been no plan for prisoners. No provisions for camps. No programs of indoctrination. No plan to convert the old Iraqi army into the new Iraqi army, or a civilian conservation corps, or a training program, or anything at all. Why? Because the gentlemen with the neatly knotted tie in the oval office hadn’t thought things through that far yet. Don’t take any prisoners, just tell them to go home. We will figure something out later.
The gentleman in the coat and tie in the oval room did not think it important to form a government in exile, preparing to administer the plan. (There was no plan.) No ministry of truth and reconciliation, for example, that would put the young men of Iraq through a six month course in political education, (civics). He had all of 2002 to get things ready, to establish ministries, develop procedures, set priorities, and nothing was done.
The man who refused to meet even with his own Party’s Senators, preferred not to ask questions and engage in discussions when meeting with his own officials, would often sit not saying anything at all. So no constitution was written for Iraq. So now we have in less than two years gone through two governments. The members of the first government have been thrown away. This in a country where these men and women risked their lives in supporting us. Several have been assassinated.
For no apparent reason the man in the oval room had agreed with his own critics that the first government, then the second government, were not “legitimate.” Even though the constitution he could have written could have been a model of transparency and accountability. The new government could have been composed of Iraq’s leading citizens, a thousand, two thousand of Iraq’s medical doctors, professors, human rights activists, lawyers, teachers, nurses, mothers, tribal leaders, religious leaders, etc., etc. Could have been . . . But because he refuses to argue, one suspects refuses to think, he simply accepts the proposition that only “elections” give legitimacy.
The Prime Minister of Britain can serve for six years without calling an election but if the new Iraqi government, established in war, amid social calamity, guerilla war, terror bombing, served with a record of public progress, and liberty, still it would not be “legitimate,” according to the well dressed man in the oval room. Why? He does not say. He does not like to explain himself.
So now in less than two years there will have been three Iraqi governments. And the third one will not govern, its job is to write a constitution. And then the reports claim surprise even disappointment that the police of Iraq are not willing to stand and fight. For who, for what? Not even the man in the oval room will stand behind the Iraqi governments he has himself created. (Or perhaps this is over stating it. He did not create then. These governments simply occurred, one after another, one government abandoned, then another, as the chaotic and confused events are “negotiated” in Iraq.)
So, yes, we can well imagine that the young Marine is frustrated.
This is called: Defining deviancy down.
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
Lecture Notes: 11-24-04
“Is no one to blame for anything then?”
---------------Hellen Schlegel, Howard’s End, by E. M. Forster
Who is to blame?
Who will take responsibility for the Marines? Where shall we begin the analysis?
The failure of the American leadership, for over 12 years, to deal with Saddam Hussein?
The young Marine who said, “This one is faking being dead, he is still breathing,” was six years old in 1991 when we should have removed Saddam Hussein in the First Gulf War. We deferred the war until he was of age. (See also how we have saved up $7.5 trillion in national debt for him as well. Look at all that we have deferred to him. We have found it more convenient to pass these problems on to him. Technically this is known as the intergenerational transfer of shit.)
He was eight years old in 1993 when the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by the Iraqi agents, who came from, and fled back to Iraq, and were protected by Iraq from extradition requests. Nothing was done then, not even when Saddam Hussein attempted to assassinate Mr. Bush (41); no we waited until this Marine was of fighting age. He was eleven when operation Bojinka was being planned in Manila. He was twelve when we finally arrested the Iraqi agent Ramsey Youseff.
Over all these years he grew up in our society, listening to the likes of Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh and the rest. Imus’ great insight, his contribution to the public discussion, was that the tape should have been erased. Now there you have moral guidance for the young Marine. Bill O’Reilly said that the Marine’s statements prior to shooting the prisoner “prove” that he was “in fear of his life.” (The next day O’Reilly said he would have been “foolish” to “exonerate” the Marine if there had not been these exculpatory statements. (Yes! Foolish. Foolish indeed.))
Beck, who condemned the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, now supports the shooting of the prisoner, and says that this will be the test to see who “really supports our troops.” (I recall wondering about Beck at the time of the Abu Ghraib story when he said that he was so upset that he wanted to “go down to the airport and spit on the returning soldiers,” who were involved in the abuse.) Lee Rogers said he expects the Marines will kill the journalist who photographed the shooting. This is what he thinks of the Marines. I will not bother with Weiner, you can imagine the insanity there. Indeed you can imagine the rest. This is how societies decline.
They shoot journalists don’t they?
What a society. So this is the social environment in which the Marine was raised, these are the men who helped create the social ethic that informed the life of that young Marine for the 18 years prior to his shipping out to Iraq. Pity the young man if he relied on the likes of these men. Pity him for all the sewage they have pumped into his young head. They have defined social deviancy down, and see to what effect.
The radio carnival barkers all think they are helping the young Marine by condoning the shooting of wounded prisoners. But of course, as is so often the case, they actually are making it worse. Time and again their idiotic arguments so inflame the public that they actually hurt the causes they profess. They are a primary reason the election was so close. Their contemptuous bloviating has kindled such a hatred that they moved a substantial portion of the 48% of the public to vote for Kerry, or rather against Bush.
And now not only do we have to do justice but with all their bluster they add another dimension, a “social statement,” that will need to be refuted. Will we now have to “make an example” out of this Marine to show the carnival barkers how wrong they are? Let us refute their falsity here, now, so that it need not be considered at the Captain’s Mast.
As civilians we can not say what is proper punishment for shooting wounded prisoners. But we can say that it is wrong. Yet this simple statement of morality, seemingly so obvious, was lacking in the bloviations of hate radio.
Do you not think young Marines are hearing their raging? Do you not think that they act on what they hear? Do they not hear Michael Weiner shouting that the Moslems are “subhumans?” Not enough for our young men to be put in a foreign land, to fight a difficult war, no that is not enough, let us turn this into a religious war!
You go to your microphones and shout out your stupid ideas, your hate filled bluster, then you retreat to the safety of your mansions, and leave the young Marine to face the court martial? In the original story it was reported that before the video taped shooting other Marines had entered the Mosque and shot two other prisoners. In the subsequent coverage these additional shootings are often not mentioned at all. None of the hate radio carnival barkers have mentioned these other shootings. Where did all these Marines get the idea that shooting wounded prisoners was acceptable? From you!
Who will take responsibility for these Marines?
Then again, maybe . . . I am wrong. Maybe this is my country? For these same twelve years that this young Marine has been growing up in America, haven’t some of these same men hectored and harassed me, driven me to my death? Perhaps they are right? . . . and I am wrong? This is America.
If someone had told me that America shoots its wounded prisoners I would have thought it a calumny. But then I reflect, that the IRS did conspire with the very criminals we were investigating. Senator Hatch was on the Imus show and did say: “I’ve heard what you do to some of your listeners.” And all the rest of you, villains and the others of you who cover up for the villains. This is America!
Are the Marines covering up the orders to shoot the prisoners? Perhaps the five prisoners were left there to bleed to death, and when they were found to be still alive . . . “this one is still breathing.” America? After all I have been through these last 12 years, I do not know anymore. As I think about it now, I did wonder about the 50 U. S. dead as against the 1,500 enemy killed? But I thought, air power? You know, firepower? Maybe I am wrong maybe hate radio is right.
Then I recall reading reports that the men of fighting age who tried to leave were not taken prisoner but were only told that they had to stay in Falujha. Why not taken prisoner? Then too at the beginning of the war deserters were turned back. They had to fight? And all these years where are the prison camps, no systematic procedures . . .why? Why all the problems at Abu Ghraib? Why when Bremer left Iraq were there no more than 9,000 prisoners, and then they released those?
Why not prisoners? Because there is no plan. The blame must rest not on this Marine or his comrades, but with the leadership.
There is no plan, no strategy, except to kill Iraqis. Notice, for example, that no effort is made to photo the dead Iraqis, or take their finger prints. Why? This is because there is no data base to be updated, or to help identify the dead. In two years we have not bothered to identify the young men of Iraq. No one thought that a census, photos, fingerprints, would be important. (For example, in order not to have large crowds at the polls, and a target for terrorists, the election could be carried out over a period of weeks, if we had a system of identification.) How can we build a country if we do not know who we are dealing with?
So we do not know even the names of the dead. We do not know who their fathers are, or who their brothers are, or their cousins and uncles. We do not know were they live. We know nothing about them. But then, if the whole of your strategy is simply to kill them why bother with all that. Right?
Well we are killing them in Iraq now. This is the whole of our plan? To “kill them over there?” This is what Mr. Bush has repeatedly said. Kill them over there. Kill them over there. That’s it. And so we send out the 18 year old Marine, and oh yes he is frustrated, who wouldn’t be, this is the whole of our strategy!
And why is this the whole of our strategy? Because a nattily dressed gentleman, who does not like explaining himself, is sitting in his oval office directing the war without being bothered by any written record, no plans, no programs, no management committees, no ministries, no administrative structure, no goals, no objectives. He has not presented to the nation, neither ours nor the Iraqis, a series of proposals or policies for the building of Iraq, nothing. He doesn’t like explaining himself.
He is negotiating his way, one day at a time. They did not want to staff out the planning because this White House likes to maintain control. Why? Are they trying to save money? Republican economy?
Bremer was appointed just in March 2003 when the tanks were just starting to Baghdad. There had been no plan for prisoners. No provisions for camps. No programs of indoctrination. No plan to convert the old Iraqi army into the new Iraqi army, or a civilian conservation corps, or a training program, or anything at all. Why? Because the gentlemen with the neatly knotted tie in the oval office hadn’t thought things through that far yet. Don’t take any prisoners, just tell them to go home. We will figure something out later.
The gentleman in the coat and tie in the oval room did not think it important to form a government in exile, preparing to administer the plan. (There was no plan.) No ministry of truth and reconciliation, for example, that would put the young men of Iraq through a six month course in political education, (civics). He had all of 2002 to get things ready, to establish ministries, develop procedures, set priorities, and nothing was done.
The man who refused to meet even with his own Party’s Senators, preferred not to ask questions and engage in discussions when meeting with his own officials, would often sit not saying anything at all. So no constitution was written for Iraq. So now we have in less than two years gone through two governments. The members of the first government have been thrown away. This in a country where these men and women risked their lives in supporting us. Several have been assassinated.
For no apparent reason the man in the oval room had agreed with his own critics that the first government, then the second government, were not “legitimate.” Even though the constitution he could have written could have been a model of transparency and accountability. The new government could have been composed of Iraq’s leading citizens, a thousand, two thousand of Iraq’s medical doctors, professors, human rights activists, lawyers, teachers, nurses, mothers, tribal leaders, religious leaders, etc., etc. Could have been . . . But because he refuses to argue, one suspects refuses to think, he simply accepts the proposition that only “elections” give legitimacy.
The Prime Minister of Britain can serve for six years without calling an election but if the new Iraqi government, established in war, amid social calamity, guerilla war, terror bombing, served with a record of public progress, and liberty, still it would not be “legitimate,” according to the well dressed man in the oval room. Why? He does not say. He does not like to explain himself.
So now in less than two years there will have been three Iraqi governments. And the third one will not govern, its job is to write a constitution. And then the reports claim surprise even disappointment that the police of Iraq are not willing to stand and fight. For who, for what? Not even the man in the oval room will stand behind the Iraqi governments he has himself created. (Or perhaps this is over stating it. He did not create then. These governments simply occurred, one after another, one government abandoned, then another, as the chaotic and confused events are “negotiated” in Iraq.)
So, yes, we can well imagine that the young Marine is frustrated.
This is called: Defining deviancy down.
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
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