Standing Against IS Standing For Something

People, you know the average joes&janes, often say to critics, especially critics of thorny things like war: "yeah, but instead of complaining, why don't you tell us what you stand for!"

And that's because American joes&janes like their critics to be helpful. You hear that a lot from the meatheads running the regime at the Bush Bunker. They claim they're all for criticism of their policies of war and thuggery, but it needs to be the right brand, which mean it needs to be the sort which is helpful. This means that the critic should agree with the assumptions and goals of the meatheads, and their dimwitted wars, while offering helpful hints about how these might be better achieved. 

Anybody who isn't on that page, who seems to be saying, in the immortal words of Marlon Brando in The Wild One (when asked what he was rebelling against): "Whaddya got?", is counted by the Bush regimists as being unhelpful, which in their view means you're helping the terrorists (or insurgents or whatever today's label is for THEM!).

Brando to squares: Whaddya got?

In other words, if you're not prepared to accept the basic idea that the Bush regime and its wars are good things, you're not just a critic, you're an enemy of its state (of mind).

The thing is, they've made such a mess of the state of things, you've got to ask yourself if being an enemy of that and them that made it is such a bad thing to be. And when the state of things plainly sucks so much and so universally, you've got to agree with Brando that no matter where you throw your critical punch, it's likely to land someplace that needed punching. 

And that's the idea of this blog. To counterspell the general evil bullshit that has befallen the entire world. Unlike a lot of other blogs, where they blame God or the Devil for that catastrophe, here we'll be blaming you lot, the readers—you know, the people responsible for it. 

Because, let's face it, the world didn't get in this fucked-up condition while you were on a coffee break, or taking a well-deserved nap. Even though you may have been doing those things, trying to distract yourself from the sinking ship you were on, you knew what was going on. You just decided to ignore it and hope things would be OK. Well, they aren't. 

And I figure blaming you is as good a start to fixing things as we're likely to find. Fixing things? Sure, I'm all for that. But, before we fix anything, we need to admit to ourselves that this shit we're doing and supporting is broken beyond hope. It's time to start over, from some kind of scratch. And to help do that, we're going to start punching.

So, let's get to it, OK?

Oh, and sure, you can blame me if you want to, that's what the comments are for—along with telling me what a great job I'm doing of course.

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So, first off, let's look at one particularly worthless bunch of crapheads who definitely need rebelling against, and some friendly words from the B.R.M.C.

These defenders of a certain kind of faith call themselves names like the Military Combat Defense Fund, and the Marine Defense Fund. They were profiled in the New York Times today.

The Times notes:

"Conservative Christians and military veterans are part an emerging group of Americans who say they are upset by the recent prosecutions of soldiers and marines based in Iraq on war crimes charges, and are coming to their defense with words, Web sites and money."

A 98-year-old contributor to the MCDF is quoted in the Times:

"I wonder if you are supposed to check out each enemy to see if they have a gun or wait for them to shoot first."

Yeah, that must explain acts like this; Private Green was just under the pressure of combat and couldn't wait to determine if the girl he is accused of raping and murdering had a gun or was intending to shoot him. Like Green's accomplice, Specialist Barker, said, the enemy wasn't cooperating that day as Barker was "having trouble getting an erection" in his efforts to rape her, so anybody can see the frustration felt by these brave defenders of the United States Constitution must have been the Iraqi insurgent's fault. Right? Well, hey, if it wasn't her fault exactly, certainly one of her family was probably an insurgent. And so Green and his troop murdered them too.

On the MCDF website, they explain their mission:

"Anyone that has been in combat knows how confusing things can get. Decisions have to be made in a split second and the harshest judge of those decisions is the combat Marine or Soldier who has made them. Most of those decisions come to visit us every night."

Well, let's hope so. Because the US mission in Iraq has deprived countless Iraqis of any more nights or days at all. And few of them got a trial, just an execution. But, of course, they must have all been insurgents. Or, let's see, it must have been because of how confusing things can get, yeah that's the ticket.

Well, if Iraqis aren't all insurgents or supporters of them by now, after the tender mercies applied to them and their children by the likes of Private Green, you have to figure their restraint is remarkable, and probably ill-advised.

And that's certainly how Iraqis see things too. For years now, most Iraqis have wanted US troops to leave their country. Almost a year ago, Iraqis clearly said they wanted US troops the hell out of their country in a year. Well, instead Bush is planning to upgrade the mission, and kill even more Iraqis for his stupid lost war.

You think that is going to convince more Iraqis that killing Americans is a bad idea? Instead, what Bush is doing is vigorously recruiting new terrorists for Qaeda. Bush is and has always been Osama bin Laden's right-hand man. And for this, he is not impeached and removed from office, while Bill Clinton was impeached for—lying about sex. 

And that is one reason why you lot, you Americans particularly of course, are to blame. That and the 2004 election infamy of course.

One thing we have to remember, if we're going to have an accurate picture of the horror that has been perpetrated upon Iraq by the United States, and that is the fact the perpetrators, the instruments of Bush's policy, are the troops Americans are being ordered to support. These troops, unfortunately, have done their best to carry out Bush's orders. And in doing this, they have succeeded in making the United States the most despised nation on the face on the Earth. They have betrayed the United States, not defended it.

In fact, it is extremely difficult to get the military to investigate or bring charges against its soldiers for war crimes. As the "defense fund" websites note, it is bad for troop morale to actually hold them accountable for committing acts of war, which are by their very nature criminal acts of course. So, only the very most heinous and undeniable cases are even investigated beyond a cursory dismissal, much less brought to trial, and then by the very organizations whose employees are accused of the crimes, and which organizations are those very same dutifully carrying out Bush's lunatic war agenda.

We should in fact be surprised that any of the accused would receive anything but the most generous benefits of any doubts the military could muster in their favor. It is extremely dubious that any of the accused are anything other than guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt of the crimes of which they are accused. The main injustice that is being committed in their trials is that more of their fellow perpetrators of the terrible crimes against the Iraqi nation are not being tried along with them, starting with their commanders, and rightly starting first with their commander-in-chief.

In that sense, Private Green'a trial may be said to be a singling out for his above-and-beyond performance of duty. He may have been Bush's instrument the day he raped and murdered that girl and her family, but it was Bush that sent him to do that work against the Iraqi people.

Let us close with this compassionate judgment: to hell with all war criminals and their supporters.