| Submit your comments on this article |
| Fifth Column |
| An Army of Scum (Ted Rall on crystal meth?) |
| 2004-05-05 |
| By Ted Rall Or, We’re Looking For a Few Good Homosexual Rapists Now it’s official: American troops occupying Iraq have become virtually indistinguishable from the SS. Like the Germans during World War II, they cordon off and bomb civilian villages to retaliate for guerilla attacks on their convoys. Like the blackshirts who terrorized Europe, America’s victims disappear into hellish prisons ruled by sadists and murderers. The U.S. military is short just one item to achieve moral parity with the Nazis: gas chambers. Congratulations, Ted, you are now indistinguishable from Joseph Goebbels. Please follow his example to its conclusion (but leave your kids, if any, out of it this time, OK?) "Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees" by soldiers, freelance mercenaries and professional torturers under the command of CIA intelligence officers at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, according to an internal government report. The detainees, about 60 percent of them assumed to be innocent by the Americans themselves, were routinely beaten, sodomized "with a chemical light or broomstick," urinated upon, tied to electrified wires and threatened with death, stripped and forced to perform homosexual sex acts on each other and U.S. troops. Don’t be fooled by military apologists who insist that these American SS are nothing more than a few bad apples. Seymour Hersh, who has read the army’s internal report, quotes Major General Antonio Taguba as saying that U.S.-committed atrocities are "systemic, endemic throughout the command structure...[The soldier-torturers] were being told what to do and told it was OK." Note that "atrocities" is added in front of the alleged Taguba quote. Taguba’s report does not refer to anyone as a "soldier-torturer." As of May 3, the Taguba report was still classified and we only have Hersh’s word for its contents. Most of Hersh’s claims about it are interpretive rather than expository and are therefore subject to the utmost suspicion. True, most soldiers probably don’t condone torture. But all soldiers have been tarnished by it. The free press is tarnished by you, Ted. George W. Bush’s new gulag archipelago, a string of concentration camps, military and INS prisons that span the globe from North Carolina to Iraq to Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay to New York City, has been designed to give torturers the veil of secrecy they require to carry out their hideous acts as well as the tacit understanding that they won’t be held accountable. The Red Cross, defense lawyers and relatives of the victims, few of whom are charged with a crime, are denied access to the detainees or even the simple confirmation that they’re being held by our government. Some soldiers, like Sergeant Ivan Frederick II, "questioned some of the things I saw," such as "leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door." But when he discussed these abuses with his superiors, he says they brushed him off: "This is how military intelligence wants it done." Ted neglects to mention that Frederick is one of the defendants and is facing a long stay in Leavenworth if he can’t convince the court martial that it was someone else’s fault. As proven by the classic psychological experiments of the ’50s, people put in a position of total power over another human being find it hard to resist abusing their charges. Prison guards mistreat inmates for a simple reason: they can. Wherever one controls another, sadism is inevitable. The ability to strike at others without fear of retaliation is a kind of control. In all seriousness, this passage is very revealing, not just about the monster Rall himself, but the authoritarian left in general. The view of power projected here is perhaps the best explanation for why Ted uses his own power (such as it is) to desecrate the dead, incite murder and mutilation, and verbally assault the families of American soldiers. However, this tragic truism can be mitigated by creating mechanisms to ensure transparency behind bars. Granting prisoners access to attorneys, journalists and other members of the outside world, unannounced inspections by human rights agencies, recognizing their rights under the Geneva Conventions and rigorous prosecutions of criminal guards can never entirely eliminate abuse, but they’re essential to prisons run by democratic societies. Under the Geneva Conventions, many of the detainees could have been shot out of hand as partisans, saboteurs, and spies. Further, the use of human shields (which Rall endorses) is a war crime in and of itself. We know about Abu Ghraib only because the inbred psychos who forced nude Iraqi men to pile up in pyramids were dumb enough to snap photographs as mementos of their time liberating the nation from Saddam. It’s like the Rodney King video: cops beat up blacks every day, but there usually isn’t a camera around. We know about it, Ted, because another of those low-class individuals whom you characterize as "scum" turned them in. Abu Ghraib, you can bet your bottom dollar, is merely the tip of the iceberg. Where are the facts to support this, Herr Propaganda Minister? Our military is structurally corrupt. We have Ted’s word word for that, it must be true. What intelligent, nuanced progressive does not know that generalizing the behavior of a dozen thugs to a group of a million or more will invariably yield the truth? Beginning in Afghanistan during the weeks after 9/11, civilian command yielded to the amoral gangster mentality of the arrogant intelligence officers of Army Special Forces and the CIA, who stand accused of massacring thousands of captured Taliban prisoners yet have never faced a real investigation. Accusations aren’t facts, and a lying POS like Ted is not the arbiter of what is or is not a real investigation. The new tone of lawlessness comes all the way from the White House, directed by a commander-in-chief who starts illegal wars without justification, strips captured prisoners of their rights under the Geneva Convention and whose smirky fingers-crossed response to the prisoner abuse scandal--"I shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated...Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people"--sends a wink and a nudge to our uniformed torturers. Keep it up, boys. Keep those broomsticks busy. Like any good authoritarian, Rall is able to read Bush’s mind, and to put words in his mouth. This kind of power-projection is a clinical symptom of alcoholism, btw. Even our coalition partners are getting the message. British soldiers running a coalition gulag in Basra reported smashing the jaw and teeth of an Iraqi accused of stealing, then dumping the broken body of the accused thief off the back of a moving truck. "They did not know whether he survived," writes The New York Times. This is a gross distortion of even the BBC’s credulous version of this hoax. One more Iraqi, it seems, who won’t be tossing roses at his liberators. Rall Receives Death Threats over Tillman Cartoon. Imagine that. The abuse of power and status inevitably provoke a response. Cause and effect. 99.9% of death threats in this country are BS, but if I were Ted I would not bet my life on that pattern holding up in this case. |
| Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy |
| #13 On a subject other than Ted Rall -- has anyone been able to locate an early report about the Abu Ghraib investigation? The earliest I have is Feb 24th, but it's pretty clear the investigation was announced sometime in January. The CJTF site and the CPA site don't have anything that I can find, but the likely date is Jan. 14th. Anyone? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-05-05 11:20:16 PM |
| #12 Amen! Jarhead! |
| Posted by: AF Lady 2004-05-05 10:44:10 PM |
| #11 F*ck Ted Rall, he's a second rate cartoonist and a first rate douche bag. He doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. Prolly the kid that got his lunch money taken away everyday at school and got wedgied on the bus ride home - typcial penis envying bitter little weasel-assed nerd. Has the type of face you couldn't stop kicking. Makes himself feel good by denigrating much better men then himself. He wouldn't last a day in my world. Sad thing is he's getting publicity for this junk, just like michael 'buffet jockey' moore. Cashing in on the shock factor though the substance and facts are not supporting the accusations. F*ck you Ted Rall, you f*cking piece of steaming monkey sh*t -you couldn't hold Pat Tillman's (may he rest in peace) sweaty boot sucks you ass feltching b*tch. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-05-05 10:40:18 PM |
| #10 Super Hose...My ex father-in-law was in Nam and various area countries for 11 years (intelligence). He HATES Kerry and is involved with an area Vietnam vet group and I'm sure he is speaking out about all this. I think many vets are disgusted with Kerry. At least many I know. Even my ex ( who is a liberal... took years to get over his liberal bs...anyway nother story) hates Kerry. So at least one lib that won't vote for Kerry. |
| Posted by: AF Lady 2004-05-05 10:39:27 PM |
| #9 AF Lady: Right on. I think the libs think the military is some kind of automated machine--not regular folks doing their duty. D-U-T-Y is a four-letter word in liberal circles. Bunch of cowardly twerps. Thanks for spending 8 years defending the rest of us. After skimming the Taguba report (#4), I thinkTed Rall is someone who probably would have no trouble treating people like the MPs did the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. He's so full of himself. And a lot of people in the media are just like that--they misuse their skills as wordsmiths. It just makes me sick. The horrible thing is that people will believe him. |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2004-05-05 10:06:41 PM |
| #8 I think sometime this year, as was posted a couple of days ago by Crawford I think, that I am in agreemnet that there will be some violnce somewhere before election. And Bill, I wish to God I saw a reason to change my mind, but events keep reinforcing that prediction. Today's wonderful performance by Congressional Dems is another point on the chart. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-05-05 9:57:47 PM |
| #7 Rall, seems to be reading from Kerry's old script. Bill, I have never fully understood the fascination that many VN Vets have with DNC candidates. My service was in the late 80's and early 90's. Most of the military in those days were very attached to Reagan and Bush. When I began to supervise in the civilian world, I began to notice a different attitude among some VN era Vets. On guy in particular tried to convince me that Al Gore's service, as a Journalist was more admirable than Bush's service as a pilot. It seems like the Kerry and Bush choice is thoroughly dividing the ranks of VN Vets. Do you have any insight on why some Vets are still allying with the same people who sided with Ho and cut all funds to the South Vietnam after the Americans were out? Note - I am mystified by the support that African Americans give to George Wallace's party. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-05-05 9:54:42 PM |
| #6 Steve, I actually said that Kerry was bringing it up again and we must relive it once more. Of course hoots and cries of anguish from the moonbats. |
| Posted by: dataman1 2004-05-05 9:53:00 PM |
| #5 Bill, you should have told them that you'd get over your Vietnam hangup when John Kerry gets over his :-) |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-05-05 9:50:19 PM |
| #4 Update: MSNBC has the Taguba report, apparently complete except for the annexes. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-05-05 9:41:38 PM |
| #3 Bill, congrats on the successful infiltration, sorry about the slings and arrows at Dim Blog - as always, you're welcome here :-) - don't you think most Americans will be repulsed by the hate groups converging on the Rep Convention in NY? I say, let em get their publicity. These types do best in darkness, and sunlight is the best cleanser |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-05-05 9:33:36 PM |
| #2 AF Lady, agreed. I was in a Dim Blog area spelling out my reasons for the unfitness of Hanoi John to be our next CIC. I used my nick of NAM VET 67-68. I was told I was an idiot, that I must have fought for the North Vietnamese and should get over Vietnam. My question was why wasn't Kerry's 1971 activities an issue with them. There is a vitrole left in this country which is disturbing. It has been incarnated to some degree in the Democratic leadership. The country is completely divided with no middle ground as I see it. People like Rall, Dean, Moore, Franken et al and all their dedicated followers appear to be living and believing in a reality of conspiracies. I truly beleive that our country is being undermined by these people. I think sometime this year, as was posted a couple of days ago by Crawford I think, that I am in agreemnet that there will be some violnce somewhere before election. Not neccessarily from Alq but from some group. Perhaps at the DNC or RNC conventions. Perhaps at the Sept 12th Vietnam Vets march in DC. |
| Posted by: Bill Nelson 2004-05-05 9:30:01 PM |
| #1 This propogandist lefty idiot was on O'Reilly last night and I wanted to reach in the tv and ring his neck. This anti-American spill makes me want to do more than that! I get so tired of these pseudo intellectuals thinking they know everything and YET they never bother to do anything to defend this country either in word or deed. If they think the US is so bad why do they remain here? The worse part is the portrayal of the military as a bunch of sadist. I am proud of my service (and I never even thought of raping anyone!) but sometimes I wonder why I spent 8 years of my life defending the freedom of idiots like Rall. And what makes it worse is they would be the first people to yell for protection from the military if needed. They can put down the military and the US and in the next breath complain when they aren't protected enough. What the hell do they want!! |
| Posted by: AF Lady 2004-05-05 9:14:52 PM |