Guerilla Projection - Unity - on Ground Zero Mosque 09.09.2010
First a word about the 9/11 anniversary from Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow!
"Our grief is not a cry for war." Poster at post 9/11 vigils Sept. 2001.
Sept. 11: A Day Without War By Amy Goodman September 08, 2010 "Information Clearing House"
-- The ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States should serve as a moment to reflect on tolerance. It should be a day of peace. Yet the rising anti-Muslim fervor here, together with the continuing U.S. military occupation of Iraq and the escalating war in Afghanistan (and Pakistan), all fuel the belief that the U.S. really is at war with Islam.
Sept. 11, 2001, united the world against terrorism. Everyone, it seemed, was with the United States, standing in solidarity with the victims, with the families who lost loved ones. The day will be remembered for generations to come, for the notorious act of coordinated mass murder. But that was not the first Sept. 11 to be associated with terror:
Sept. 11, 1973, Chile: Democratically elected President Salvadore Allende died in a CIA-backed military coup that ushered in a reign of terror under dictator Augusto Pinochet, in which thousands of Chileans were killed.
Sept. 11, 1977, South Africa: Anti-apartheid leader Stephen Biko was being beaten in a police van. He died the next day.
Sept. 11, 1990, Guatemala: Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack was murdered by the U.S.-backed military.
Sept. 9-13, 1971, New York: The Attica prison uprising occurred, during which New York state troopers killed 39 prisoners and guards and wounded hundreds of others.
Sept. 11, 1988, Haiti: During a mass led by Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide at the St. Jean Bosco Church in Port-au-Prince, right-wing militiamen attacked, killing at least 13 worshippers and injuring at least 77. Aristide would later be twice elected president, only to be ousted in U.S.-supported coup d'etats.
If anything, Sept. 11 is a day to remember the victims of terror, all victims of terror, and to work for peace, like the group September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Formed by those who lost loved ones on 9/11/2001, their mission could serve as a national call to action: "[T]o turn our grief into action for peace. By developing and advocating nonviolent options and actions in the pursuit of justice, we hope to break the cycles of violence engendered by war and terrorism. Acknowledging our common experience with all people affected by violence throughout the world, we work to create a safer and more peaceful world for everyone."
GOP Candidate Slams Religious Tolerance
Hateful rant by Republican Alan West who is upset about those who preach tolerance and coexistence.
He claims Islam that is Muslim Americans are acting as a "Fifth-Column" taking over America politically and economically.
After 9/11 there was a rise in Islamophobia but as President Bush & others kept insisting that Al Qaeda and other extremist did not represent Islam so eventually thing cooled down. Now Islamophbia is spreading as Hating Muslims and Muslim Americans has become the new acceptable prejudice as America uses Muslims as its newest scape goat for explaining the changes in America and a war that has gone so very wrong and an economy destroyed by financing the war and the implementing of the Neoconservatives' disastrous economic theory which may look good on paper but in reality is destroying America's economy. As jobs disappear or are sent overseas for larger profits for the corporations and the income of the working class and even the middle class are shrinking all of this uncertainty leads to this type of lashing out but the people are lashing out at the wrong targets.
Forget the Pastor: Let's Talk About the Extremists to Worry About by Michael B. Keegan at Huffington Post, Sept. 11, 2010
The month leading up to the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks has been dominated by a callow and opportunistic debate. This debate -- ostensibly about the rights of American Muslims to build a community center a few blocks from Ground Zero -- is really about the rights of Muslim Americans to be just that: both Muslim and American. And it's ultimately about the strength of our allegiance to one of the best, and sometimes the most difficult, of our American values: the conviction that this country belongs equally to all its citizens, not just those in the ethnic, religious, or political majority.
The campaign against the Park51 community center has succeeded in taking strains of extremist Islamophobia and making them mainstream. The "controversy" was concocted by virulently anti-Islamic blogger Pamela Geller and brought to national attention by mainstream conservatives, most notably Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, hoping to ride the scandal to November. Dozens of political leaders jumped on the anti-Islam bandwagon; the complete silence of many others spoke volumes.
It is this careful mainstreaming of Islamophobia that has allowed a small time, extremist Florida pastor's planned Koran-burning to become a national event with international implications. Terry Jones got his 15 minutes even though his Gainesville church has only 50 members. His anti-Islam and anti-gay crusading had previously isolated him as an extremist. But this week, his planned "Burn a Koran Day" drew international attention and pleas from President Obama, Sec. Robert Gates, and Gen. David Petraeus urging him to stand down lest he put our troops in danger and harm the war effort.
Some anti-Park51 crusaders, even Sarah Palin, denounced Jones' dangerous publicity stunt. But the fact is that his actions would attract little attention, and do little harm, if they weren't taking place in the context of widespread and loud Islamophobia encouraged and implicitly condoned by prominent political leaders. Leaders such as Palin could pretend to be tolerant by denouncing Jones' clear extremism, while all the while continuing to push subtler, more pervasive strains of Islamophobia. The suggestion, made by Palin, John Boehner, and by Jones himself that the Koran-burning event and the building of the Islamic Community Center had some moral equivalence is treacherous indeed, implying that somehow the practice of Islam is itself an offensive act. It's this sort of insidious notion -- passed off as a legitimate argument -- that creates the growing level of distrust of Muslims in our society.
While Jones' event has been called off, Pamela Geller still plans to insult the memory of Sept. 11 by holding an anti-Islam march near Ground Zero. Like Jones, she deserves to be marginalized and ignored. Yet instead, her rally has attracted prominent national figures including former UN Ambassador John Bolton and omnipresent blogger Andrew Breitbart -- and, of course, plenty of media attention.
The national leaders who have fueled this zealous mistrust of Muslims, and worked toward making Islamophobia a legitimate political position, have put our troops in harm's way, irreparably injured the war effort that many of them were eager to start, and twisted American values into something very ugly.
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The problem is that Americans keep claiming that the 9/11 attack was an attack on America's basic values and principles and yet these very principles and values are under attack in the nation of America itself.
It is not just the extremist loons such as Pastor Terry Jones but mainstream media such as Fox News, Newt Gingrich, SarahPalin the GOP and the Religious Right and the Islamophobes who manage to get treated in the media and the press as if they were objective non-partisan rational and well informed scholars, academics and pundits when in fact they are the Merchants of Hate. They push their hate-filled revisionist history of Christianity as if no wrong was ever committed by a Christian Nation while damning the whole of Islam, its theology, its history and all Muslims in the past ,present and future.
They claim Islam as the most evil religion and ideology in the world .
They believe that the liberals, progressives, secularists and leftist are aiding and abetting the Muslims in order to reshape America and undermine America's basic principles; its traditions; its religious beliefs; its economic principles of unfettered unregulated Free Market place where the Godly that is the Real Americans are rewarded with wealth and material goods.
The obvious change as such is that of the attacks on the right to religious freedom of Muslim Americans.
The other groups under attack by these uberconservative for their religious beliefs are the liberal Christians and Jews .
Glenn Beck argues that any church which preaches in favor of "social Justice" can not call itself a "Real Christian Church". This notion can be easily apllied to other religious groups such as liberal Jews who are "reformist" or " conservative" Jews who reject orthodox Judaism .
Glenn Beck and his fellow travelers such as Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich
When the soldiers of Christendom kill innocent people torture them and mutilate their bodies it is played down by the Western Media and especially in the USA or whatever country they are from. Our civilization they keep telling us is superior to all others past or present .
So the revelation that some American soldiers in Afghanistan created a "Death Squad" in which they hunt down Afghan civilians for the thrill of it without being concerned about whether or not these civilians are any sort of threat. And making things worse these soldiers were into mutilating bodies of those they killed and took trophies from each in the form of cut off fingers .
The issue is that they will be treated more than likely as a "Few bad apples" and not representative of the average American soldier.
But these men felt they could get away with such activities because they believed that the Military and Pentagon would not care about such activities since the War on Terror is a dirty war against Islamic Terrorists.
The belief in America seems to be that all citizens in these Muslim countries are the enemy because according to them the civilians of these countries willingly allow or give aid and comfort to the enemy. The fact is that anti-Muslim anti-Islam sentiment in America is growing and has now gone mainstream. So of course these ideas are going to become more acceptable among the general population which then affects the attitudes of the troops on the ground.
Of course we know as many Iraqi vets have pointed out that in basic training these notions of hate for all Muslims and Arabs is inculcated from the get go without making it clear that not all Muslims, not all Arabs or not all Iraqis or Afghans are terrorists or the enemy. It appears that these new recruits are not seriously taught to differentiate between the average citizen and the "terrorists".
Further they are not seriously taught any such notions such as cultural sensitivity. For instance US troops will barge into a private home in Iraq and Afghanistan in the middle of the night dragging men women and children out of bed shouting obscenities and showing a complete lack of respect for these families. If one of the people in the house dares to question the soldiers right to do this the person is often beaten and dragged away to be detained in a prison where the individual is treated without any regard to their rights and freedoms or personal sense of dignity.
In fact the whole point of the US troops and the Pentagon and White House seems to be to remind these civilians even if completely innocent about who is in control and has absolute authority over them to the point that the US soldiers can beat, abuse and torture detained individuals if they so desire.
The US forces and Nato forces as well have little respect for these civilians and treat them as if they were subhuman. Then the American people and the US military personnel wonder why they are hated, feared and are unable to understand that each time such disrespect for average citizens takes place these individual citizens and their families feel they have been shamed and that their honor is under attack. What happens next is that many individuals after being treated in this manner are now going to be reluctant to help these foreign invaders in the future and some will become part of the armed insurgency.
What the US military and its soldiers do not seem to understend is the negative effects all of these arbitrary raids on private homes has had . Add to this US attacks on residential areas where the troops show no regard really for the deaths of innocent civilians -this was true under George W. Bush and is now true under President Obama.
Even if the American people are suffering from some form of collective amnesia about the abuses and torture and summary executions carried out by US troops in the name of freedom , capitalism, American interests and Christianity the victims will always remember how callouly and brutally they were treated by US troops or NATO troops .
Obama promised change during his election campaign but instead has just continued the same disastrous and criminal policies of the Bush administration. So much for winning hearts and minds when the President continues to refuse to shut down Gitmo or other such sites operated by US personnel or their proxies that is sending prisoners which contravenes international law to countries where these prisoners will be tortured.
Obama is still allowing some torture to take place though his legal team like Bush & Cheney's legal team will make their dubious claims that the rough treatment of prisoners is according them not torture or abuse.
Obama is as determined as Bush that no American will ever be tried by the International Court for a War Crime or Crimes Against Humanity.
The rule of law it appears only applies to other nations and not America.
Meanwhile Obama continues to use Drones to attack wedding parties and other family or tribal gatherings because there might be a couple of terrorist in the group. It is of little consequence if a hundred or more innocent civilians are blown to pieces by the bombs dropped.
According to Al Qaeda America is evil and represents in their view the Great Satan who is anti-God and therefore all who reside in America are part of that evil and so all are guilty. It appears many Americans and the military and the White House has the same fallacious attitude towards the citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as Iran.
For all their insistence that they care about the rights of civilians especially women in these countries in the end when America attacks it doesn't bother to make these distinctions ie when they invaded Iraq with their technocolor televised "Shock and Awe" and then later as they destroyed various cities such as Fallujah and Basra .
I was reminded of the battle of Fallujah while reading about the history of Ghengis Khan and the Mongols when at one point he and his army completely surrounded cities and then blew the cities apart and then went on a killing frenzy against combatants and non-combatants.
So what have we learned over the last nine years that large numbers of Americans are against the public burning of copies of the Qur'an but have no problem with setting whole cities on fire or abusing and torturing prisoners whether they are guilty of anything or not. The American plan as it was in Vietnam, in countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile is simply to fill the populace with so much fear that they will eventually succumb to the invaders-though what mostly happens is that all those who dare question the status quo of American Hegemony are imprisoned, executed or sent into exile . So whether they are academics, scholars, politicians or the media those who speak out who might be listened to are eliminated or silenced one way or another.
USA Noble Soldiers Hunting Humans For Sport
Now it appears that even the Holocaust though it occurred on Western soil the new Myth being created is that racism bigotry anti-Semitism etc. were learned from thos evil peoples in the Middle East or Asia or in a word the mysterious Orient where life is cheap. Yet it was in Christendom that millions helped to kill millions of other people- whether Jews, Gypsies/Roma, Slavs, socialists, communist Boers, Armenians, Irish, Scots,
ah yes another story about the West' Noble Crusading soldiers fighting the Barbarian Hordes .
So who are the barbarians ? Is our civilization a mere facade to cover up our true nature which we may never escape.
We are that animal that is in a perpetual state of war. Without war without an enemy we have no purpose.
Of course the Politically correct Talking Point by the US army , the Pentagon, the White House and NATO will be that these men are just a few more bad apples renegades.
Yet vets coming out of Iraq have talked about how widespread such killings were taking place and then covered up by the brass . These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg and bring to light the callous racist attitudes of the US Military Killing Machine.
These wars are not being fought for some noble cause but rather to revenge the deaths of 9/11 and any other attack on Westerners. And of course like any blood fued there is no end to the need for reprisals. Four Americans are murdered in Fallujah and the brave Americans attack the city with all their awesome fire power against a rag-tag lightly armed resistance.
America invaded their country. Iraqis did not invade America or the West.
To appease the peoples of the Homeland America unleashed its war machine mass murdering over 1 million Iraqi citizens many of whom rose up to fight the invading Barbarians -that is the brutal and savage Americans who see the lives of other peoples as cheap and meaningless. America as Bob Dylan wrote has God on its side.
And then people in the West wonder why so many people outside the West distrust , fear and hate those of the barbaric West. If all the world turned against us could we really blame them. We glibly and hypocritically speak of rights and freedoms and dignity but we do not treat those outside the West with dignity.
and the other issue here for most Americans is not the actions of these killers but the cowardice and disloyalty of the soldier who became a "SNITCH" a whistle blower. Even Obama as we have seen has no patience for whistle blowers . As in the case of Wikileaks all Obama wanted to know was who leaked the supposedly sensitive secret papers . Obama like Bush and every other American president before him was not interested in what possible crimes US soldiers had committed in Iraq or Afghanistan. He and his Spin-Master Mr. Gibbs will defend the American armed forces no matter what though from time to time he may have to throw a few Scapegoats to the wolves so he can pretend that he is outraged by the actions of these " Few Bad Apples" and "Renegades" when in fact they are the norm in US military operations whether it is Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan , El Salvador , Guatemala, Chile, Honduras, the Philippines in the 19th century or Iran from 1953-1979. The Pentagon does get a hoot out of sending death squads or hit squads to show what they are capable of. They see themselves as beyond ethical standards of good and evil.
US Soldiers 'Killed Afghan Civilians for Sport and Collected Fingers as Trophies'
Soldiers face charges over secret 'kill team' which allegedly murdered at random and collected fingers as trophies of war by Chris McGreal The Guardian UK, Sept. 9, 2010 via Commondreams.org
.and so it goes,
by Chris McGreal The Guardian UK, Sept. 9, 2010 via Commondreams.org
Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.
Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.
In one of the most serious accusations of war crimes to emerge from the Afghan conflict, the killings are alleged to have been carried out by members of a Stryker infantry brigade based in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.
The killings came to light in May after the army began investigating a brutal assault on a soldier who told superiors that members of his unit were smoking hashish. The Army Times reported that members of the unit regularly smoked the drug on duty and sometimes stole it from civilians.
The soldier, who was straight out of basic training and has not been named, said he witnessed the smoking of hashish and drinking of smuggled alcohol but initially did not report it out of loyalty to his comrades. But when he returned from an assignment at an army headquarters and discovered soldiers using the shipping container in which he was billeted to smoke hashish he reported it.
Two days later members of his platoon, including Gibbs and Morlock, accused him of "snitching", gave him a beating and told him to keep his mouth shut. The soldier reported the beating and threats to his officers and then told investigators what he knew of the "kill team".
Following the arrest of the original five accused in June, seven other soldiers were charged last month with attempting to cover up the killings and violent assault on the soldier who reported the smoking of hashish. The charges will be considered by a military grand jury later this month which will decide if there is enough evidence for a court martial. Army investigators say Morlock has admitted his involvement in the killings and given details about the role of others including Gibbs. But his lawyer, Michael Waddington, is seeking to have that confession suppressed because he says his client was interviewed while under the influence of prescription drugs taken for battlefield injuries and that he was also suffering from traumatic brain injury.
"Our position is that his statements were incoherent, and taken while he was under a cocktail of drugs that shouldn't have been mixed," Waddington told the Seattle Times
GORD.
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