“It makes no difference what men think of war, said the Judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war awaited him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be….War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.”-- Cormac McCarthy, “Blood Meridian” 1985
One of the enduring myths in American culture is the idea that the United States has always occupied the moral high ground in terms of global virtuousness. I was taught growing up that truth and justice were the American way. In fact, one of my heroes was Superman, who stood for truth, justice and the American way. How far we have fallen. We sanction torture, ignore the constitution’s guarantee of our civil rights, and pursue profit driven wars at the cost of our young men’s and women’s lives as well as the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocents abroad.
So it was with some surprise that I read of The New York Times’ outrage and indignation at the video Madonna is showing on her latest tour. In an editorial on 8/27/08 entitled “So Far Over the Line” the Times noted that, “It shows a montage of genocide (a Nazi death camp, Asian and African killing fields) and faces of evil and oppression (Adolph Hitler, Ayotollah Khomeini, Robert Mugabe). Then it cuts to Mike Huckabee, who ran for the Republican nomination, and senator John McCain, who is about to become the official Republican nominee.” The Times goes on to say that “There is no room in decent discourse for comparing a candidate for president to Hitler.”
Why not? As most of my readers know, I’ve compared Bush to Hitler, and firmly believe he should be tried in The Hague for war crimes. Given that McCain believes we should continue the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, I find it neither far fetched nor appalling that Madonna is willing to liken him to a Khomeini or Mugabe. If McCain's policies come to fruition he will be an accomplice to war crimes that have already been committed. Further, continuing to ignore the horrors in Darfur will turn Bush's genocide by omission into McCain's crime of comission.
Let’s review a few other articles that appeared in that same edition where the Times felt it their duty to castigate Madonna in its main editorial:
U.S. Killed 90, Including 60 Children, in Afghan Village, U.N. Finds
KABUL, Afghanistan — A United Nations human rights team has found “convincing evidence” that 90 civilians — among them 60 children — were killed in airstrikes on a village in western Afghanistan on Friday, according to the United Nations mission in Kabul.
If the assertion proves to be correct, this would almost certainly be the deadliest case of civilian casualties caused by any United States military operation in Afghanistan since 2001. The United Nations statement adds pressure to the United States. The numbers closely match those given by a government commission sent from Kabul to investigate the bombing, which put the total dead at up to 95.
Mohammad Iqbal Safi, the head of the parliamentary defense committee and a member of the government commission, said the 60 children were 3 months old to 16 years old, all killed as they slept. “It was a heartbreaking scene,” he said. The death toll may rise higher, because heavy lifting equipment is needed to uncover all the remains, said one Western official who had seen the United Nations report.
And this:
U.S. Soldiers Executed Iraqis, Statements Say
By PAUL VON ZIELBAUER
Published: August 26, 2008
In March or April 2007, three noncommissioned United States Army officers, including a first sergeant, a platoon sergeant and a senior medic, killed four Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots to the head as the men stood handcuffed and blindfolded beside a Baghdad canal, two of the soldiers said in sworn statements. After the killings, the first sergeant — the senior noncommissioned officer of his Army company — told the other two to remove the men’s bloody blindfolds and plastic handcuffs, according to the statements made to Army investigators, which were obtained by The New York Times.
After removing the blindfolds and handcuffs, the three soldiers shoved the four bodies into the canal, rejoined other members of their unit waiting in nearby vehicles and drove back to their combat outpost in southwest Baghdad, the statements said.
In their statements, Sergeants Mayo and Leahy each described killing at least one of the Iraqi detainees on instructions from First Sgt. John E. Hatley, who the soldiers said killed two of the detainees with pistol shots to the back of their heads.
Last month, four other soldiers from Sergeant Hatley’s unit were charged with murder conspiracy for agreeing to go along with the plan to kill the four prisoners, in violation of military laws that forbid harming enemy combatants once they are disarmed and in custody.
In their sworn statements, Sergeants Mayo and Leahy described the events. The patrol chased some men into a building, arresting them. On the way to their combat outpost, Sergeant Hatley’s convoy was informed by Army superiors that the evidence to detain the Iraqis was insufficient, Sergeant Leahy said in his statement. The unit was told to release the men, according to the statement.
“First Sergeant Hatley then made the call to take the detainees to a canal and kill them,” Sergeant Leahy said.
“So the patrol went to the canal, and First Sergeant, Sgt. First Class Mayo and I took the detainees out of the back of the Bradley, lined them up and shot them,” Sergeant Leahy said, referring to a Bradley fighting vehicle. “We then pushed the bodies into the canal and left.”
Sergeant Leahy, in his statement, said, “I’m ashamed of what I’ve done,” later adding: “When I did it, I thought I was doing it for my family. Now I realize that I’m hurting my family more now than if I wouldn’t have done it.”
Add to this today’s Times front page report that the United States has secretly handed over alleged terrorists to the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia (a barbaric Kingdom where human rights are a joke), and Egypt (a dictatorship run by our thug ally, Hosni Mubarak, who would also qualify for Madonna’s montage), and you have to wonder about the pomposity of the Times’ vilification of the Bay City Queen. Quoting the Times: “Many of these detainees are initially held, without notification to the Red Cross, sometimes for weeks at a time, in secret at a camp in Iraq and another in Afghanistan run by American Special Operations Forces.”
What I have to say about Madonna is this: YOU GO GIRL!
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