Semantics used to soften the horrors of war and occupation 12-28-2005

December 28, 2005         Semantics used to soften the horrors of war and occupation

We are fast becoming a nation of drones where money and political power is transforming our lives. Newspaper editors and writers are under increasing pressure to use a PC lexicon to describe current events. Those who resist these pressures and attempt to maintain their traditional role as watch dogs of democracy often suffer the wrath of their corporate advertisers or the power brokers in Washington.  For example, the term illegal Jewish settlements has been replaced by the softer term, ‘settlements’, or ‘disputed settlements’ or ‘outposts’ by a directive from Colin Powell, in 2001, under pressure from the Jewish lobby.  The apartheid wall separating the West Bank from ‘greater Israel’ is now referred to as a ‘fence’. The language of the Iraq war and rules of engagement, conceived by the second pro-consul, Paul Bremer, was obediently followed by most of the US media.  Great care was taken to exclude the graphic images of the ‘shock and awe’ aerial attacks to minimize public outrage. Hidden from the American public were the US flag draped coffins and wounded American troops.

Iraqis who resisted the illegal invasion were demonized as terrorists, rebels, remnants of the former regime or simply the ‘bad guys’. Writers, or commentators who attempted to travel along the ‘road less traveled’ often suffered the ultimate fate. The semantic effect of this journalistic obfuscation is to sanitize the insane horrors of war and blunt public opposition to actions which violate the basic tenets of all great religions and basic human decency.

Senator Lieberman 12-13-2005

13, December 2005                Senator Lieberman should resign   

                                              

Senator Lieberman’s stubborn defense of President Bush’s disastrous Iraq adventure defies credulity. Lieberman has disgraced his elected office and performed a grave disservice to his Connecticut constituents and the Democratic party. This ‘closet Republican’ is so aligned with the core anti-democratic beliefs of the Bush White House that he should resign. He has deceived his Connecticut voters by masquerading as a Democratic when he espouses a Republican platform. He has undermined his party’s right to vigorously dissent over Bush’s Iraq policy and thereby is a continuous embarrassment and liability to his party.

Israel 12-12-2005

12, December 2005                Israel

In a stunning turnaround in policy, the Pentagon-commissioned study released in November 2005, suggested a welcome new approach to nuclear proliferation which might well be acceptable to all the warring factions in the Middle East. The study exposed the dark secret, largely hidden from the US public, of Israel's huge stockpile of WMD's. The study recommended the urgent need to dismantle Israel's stockpile of such weapons rather than focusing solely on pressuring Iran and other Middle Eastern countries from developing nuclear weapon capabilities.

As the sole nation which has exercised the destructive powers of these terrifying weapons we are morally and duty bound to limit their use and production. Israel is reported to possess a stockpile of WMD's including well over 100 nuclear, chemical and biological warheads. An interesting historical footnote was the ability of Israel to hide these illegal WMD's from U.S. inspectors in 1962 by building a false wall at its Dimona's generating plant. The Pentagon's authors which include retired Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom and Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy deserve credit for their common-sense recommendations. Persuading Israel to dismantle its huge stockpile of WMD's and signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would go a long way to defusing tensions in the Middle East and raise U.S. stature as an honest broker in the Middle East.

Torture & Mayhem 12-4-2005

4, December 2005                  Torture & Mayhem

Recently, a former U.S. Army interrogator Specialist Tony Lagouranis, talked about his involvement with abusing detainees in Iraq and torture carried out by the Navy Seals. The harsh interrogation techniques including the use of dogs, sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation and dietary manipulation. Navy SEALS induced hypothermia by using ice water to lower the body temperature of prisoners. They would often invade homes and torture residents in front of family members. This included breaking bones and causing excruciating pain with no real concern with establishing their guilt.  Lagouranis estimates the vast majority of those incarcerated or randomly selected, were innocent and the abuse occurred to provide Pentagon policy makers with bogus statistics to blunt war critics.  Lagouranis describes  a human grave yard in Fallujah consisting of hundreds of men,

women and children who had been lying in the streets for days and had been "eaten by dogs and birds and maggots."

Lagouranis confirmed what Senator McCain and others have claimed, namely the brutal torture of prisoners did not illicit any useful information and occasionally produced completely false information which was used to manipulate lawmakers and the American public. 

In the growing scandal of torture and mayhem in Iraq, we now learn of the existence of death squads within the Shiite police and special commandos.

I urge readers to express their outrage. We must halt these crimes against humanity.