Walks with Dogs

Courtesy About.com

(Above snapshot of former Veep in his Undisclosed Location courtesy of About.com )

Amid all the well-justified excitement about the release of the Torture Memos, my thoughts turn to the underlings who actually performed the tortures. We have Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld and the rest of the gang Mike Malloy calls the Bush Crime Family atop the dungheap. Then come their minions: Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales, Steven Bradbury and any other contemptible, cynical, psychopathic, sociopathic, inhuman zombie who took part in justifying the inexcusable. All these have filthy minds but clean hands meaning they do not have to see the humans they are destroying. They do not have to smell the smells or hear the screams. Then we come to the hands who have to do the deeds: fling people against walls, shackle people in stress positions, waterboard and on and on.

I so far cannot find who, exactly, those people were. Of course there were military police at Abu Ghraib and these were identified by name. But identities of CIA “operatives” and “interrogators” and those ever-present “contractors” as well as “medical personnel” are hidden in vapors. Who, exactly, had to fasten the shackles, do the wall-slamming, turn thermostats and miserable noise up and down? Did they get extra duty pay?

If it came to a choice, of course I’d rather see the top junkyard dogs prosecuted. But why does it have to be a choice? Why can’t every single person who in any way participated be appropriately punished?

Reasons:

1. CIA “operatives” or whatever the job title may be: “Chief wall-head-banger” perhaps, are civilians. Therefore they do NOT have to obey orders. They are not subject to court martial. Therefore I have more sympathy for military personnel caught up in this miasma than I do for civilian employees.

2. Some had the courage of their convictions. Witness the story of Alyssa Peterson. Why didn’t more personnel stand up? Here is an excerpt:
Editor and Publisher Online

April 23, 2009

U.S. Soldier Who Killed Herself–After Refusing to Take Part in Torture
By Greg Mitchell

(April 23, 2009) — With each new revelation on U.S. torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo (and who, knows, probably elsewhere), I am reminded of the chilling story of Alyssa Peterson, who I have written about numerous times in the past three years but now with especially sad relevance. Appalled when ordered to take part in interrogations that, no doubt, involved what we would call torture, she refused, then killed herself a few days later, in September 2003.

3. Common sense. Nobody in their right mind would follow orders to commit these grotesqueries. I once quit a job because the boss asked me to make coffee. I would damn well walk out on the spot if some fanatical sadistic geek, no matter his title, ordered me to enclose a prisoner in a box with insects. Were the “interrogators” threatened with torture themselves if they did not obey? That would excuse them in my eyes. But if they did it just to keep their jobs, or to suck up to their superiors in hopes of advancement, or because they are incurably sick sadiests, I say shackle them now and let’s see them in court.

4. The FBI wouldn’t torture nor condone its personnel doing so. Could the CIA have decided likewise?

My Tortured Decision by Ali Soufan
NYT Op-Ed Online
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?_r=1
April 22, 2009
“…My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue.” (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)…
…”One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. …”

Were there other Alyssa Petersons? Have other bottom-level employees quit? Developed PTSD? Died or disappeared?Monsters like Cheney always seem to get away with their crimes. Their ability to self-justify is boundless. Where are the stories about the common man or woman, the working stiff, caught up in this insanity?

Courtesy of Afghan-web

Today’s post is a photo essay in format of .pdf file. Click here for “In Memory Of” by Dr. Marc Herold, which eloquently says what needs to be said about our policy in Afghanistan and the real results for innocent families. Do not miss Dr. Herold’s website which features his online Afghan Victim Memorial Project: “An Online Memorial to the civilians killed by the U.S. Bombing, Invasion and Occupation of Afghanistan after September 11th.”

I am fortunate to come in contact with Dr.  Herold through my research into the civilian cost of our Afghanistan and Pakistan policy. Dr. Herold readily gave permission to post his work. He is further distinguished because he helped create Iraq Body Count .

Iraq Body Count “is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s largest public database of violent civilian deaths during and since the 2003 invasion. The count encompasses non-combatants killed by military or paramilitary action and the breakdown in civil security following the invasion.”

Dr. Herold can be reached at :

Professor of Economic Development
Dept. of Economics
Whittemore School of Business & Economics
University of New Hampshire
Durham, N.H. 03824
E-mail: Marc. Herold@unh.edu

I can add nothing to this moving and powerful photoessay. I urge anyone with a heart to visit Dr. Herold’s site.

Courtesy British Battles.com War: First Afghan War Date: January 1842. Place: Central Afghanistan. Combatants: British and Indians of the Bengal Army and the army of Shah Shuja against Afghans and Ghilzai tribesmen..

Greetings to all. I’ve decided to write in green; it’s the right thing to do. Quotes will be in black.

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Report on Afghan/Pakistan Civilian Deaths from 12/22/08 to 1/21/09

From Dec, 22, 2008 through January 21, 2009, I received daily Google Alerts on the keywords: “Afghanistan,” “civilian deaths”. There were such deaths every week in that time frame. Overall, journalists agreed 2008 was the worst year yet for civilian deaths at American hands. Estimates are as high as 2,000 dead, thereby almost reaching the number of US innocents who perished in the 9-11 tragedy.  

For this report, I combined reported innocents’ deaths due to exclusive US or NATO actions into one category. Victims of US actions outnumber other those of other NATO forces, but in many reports, they are impossible to separate out. Some data are included for deaths attributed to Canada exclusively and Australia exclusively. I did not include deaths due to “insurgents,” suspected Taliban, suicide bombers or any other form of domestic mayhem in that agonized nation. I wanted to list injuries, but that information was sparse. I included what I did get. It will be obvious if you look at the report that much of the data are estimates, and these vary, and are disputed by different factions.

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Among those who think military actions such as bombing and night raids on civilian households are a tragic mistake, are those who protested over the 2009 Easter holiday. Peace activists from around the country were arrested while protesting unmanned drone raids here in Nevada, at Creech Air Force Base. Evidently the drone aircraft are controlled, like arcade video games, by military personnel sitting for 12 hour shifts in little booths  at Creech.

Nevada Desert Experience is the go-to website chronicling  long-standing protests of  nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site. Probably the best-known regular  is Martin Sheen, who has had his share of experience and handcuffs in the Nevada desert. Many of these same protesters object to the drone raids as well.

Below is link and text from Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now“  April 14, 2009 report on the arrests, and interview with Father Louis Vitale, long-term peace activist, who was among those arrested, and with Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist.

Peace Activists Arrested After Protesting US Drones in Nevada

US drone bombings have reportedly killed 687 Pakistani civilians since 2006. During that time, US Predator drones carried out sixty strikes inside Pakistan, but hit just ten of their actual targets. Last week, a group of peace activists last week staged the first major act of civil disobedience against the drone attacks in the United States. Fourteen people were arrested outside the Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where Air Force personnel pilot the unmanned drones used in Pakistan. We speak with longtime California peace activist Father Louis Vitale, who was among those arrested, and with Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist. [includes rush transcript]

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Another voice of protest is Professor Marc W. Herold who was involved in the Iraq Body Count and now maintains the website: http://cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm “A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States’ Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan:A Comprehensive Accounting [revised]”

Besides providing data, Dr. Herold honors the fallen with pictures, names and histories.

From 12/22/08 to 1/21/09, I had Google Alerts sent to my email inbox. I was trying to get a handle on numbers of Afghan civilians killed or wounded by the USA.

I was so overwhelmed with information, that I shut off the pipeline after a month.

Now attempting to sort it out, I am finding varying estimates, but overwhelming agreement from many sources that:

1. US and other NATO forces are responsible for hundreds, possibly thousands of civilian deaths.

2. Many of these deaths result from unmanned drone bombings.

3. US usually claims either the victims were “insurgents” or “Taliban” or “Al-Quaida” or “enemies” or “terrorists.” Frequently, unnamed US “officials” claim to know nothing about the killings.

4. Local villagers, neighbors, relatives, officials will say those murdered were not terrorists.

5. Karzai’s protests are incredibly mild.

6. Obama has never acknowledged these atrocities nor apologized nor stopped them. In fact, he will escalate the invasion.

I am beyond outraged by these awful circumstances. I write the Obama administration constantly about it.

All the Obamaniacs say “hold his feet to the fire.” Yeah? HOW?????

Watch this blog. I am organizing the mass of data I received and will post it soon.

Wounded child in Gaza

Some truths are self-evident. That torture and war are wrong is self-evident. Self-evident means no further explanation is necessary. If the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are self-evident, the obvious corollary is that destruction of life, liberty or happiness are wrong.

The first question I remember asking in Sunday School:”if God is love, why is there war?” Unsatisfactory answer from Christian Science teacher goes like this: “There is no war. It is an error in perception. We live in Adam’s dream. When we awake, we will see the perfection of God. If you turn on the light, there is no more darkness.”

Likewise the ancient Heart Sutra:

“No Eye, Ear, Nose, Tongue, Body or Mind;
No Form, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch or Mind Object;
No Realm of the Eye,
Until We Come to No realm of Consciousness.”

The message: that the reality we experience every day is not the ultimate reality. The ultimate reality is Emptiness and to directly experience emptiness is our goal. Therefore…if I interpret this correctly, and there’s a good chance that I don’t…we should strive to experience Emptiness and not be either attracted nor repelled by the phenomena of everyday reality.

The Heart Sutra came centuries before Mary Baker Eddy’s vision. It most likely originated in the first century C.E. Mary Baker Eddy wrote Science and Health in 1875. [There is speculation that in fact she plagiarized the work of  Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby who had cured her of chronic ill health, but that is another story.] But in view of the chronology of these ideas, it would appear that the concepts of the Heart Sutra: emptiness and the unreality of what we call every day reality — precede and encapsulate the concepts of Christian Science. Another topic for another day is the question of Mary Baker Eddy’s inspiration and vision. Was she dipping from an eternal, omnipresent well? Was she lifted to Buddha consciousness by her head injury and subsequent healing? Had she at some point studied the sutras? I do not know and all these are questions that  intrigue but digress. My point is that there is a long-standing religious and spiritual case for evil being unreal, an error in perception. This is utterly unsatisfactory to me in view of the photograph above.

Another argument, frequently offered by New Agers, is that those who appear helpless victims to me are in fact just suffering the results of their karma. So I shouldn’t have survivor guilt over my fat happy American life while others writhe in hospitals where the aggressor has shut off supply of medicines; while others spend years on end in robot metal cells guarded by robot Bush loyalists with no charges, no trial, no evidence, nothing but daily torture with no hope of release. The idea that in any way these souls deserve such a fate is unacceptable to me.

The only answer for me is service, but not service to some ancient sutra or some self-serving politician, not to any cause other than the effort to heal and help. In this light, I am obligated to seek closer association with a helping organization. If in this pursuit I forget my ego enough to experience emptiness, great. If not, at least I’m serving my deepest sense of right.

I hope the Obama government provides outlets for service to right our national wrongs. Right now I wouldn’t have the courage to go to Iraq or Gaza or Afghanistan. Yet those are the places the most outrageous wrongs at American hands are committed. I have been talking No More Victims up for a while, and maybe with the new administration, and one of the new State Department buzzwords being Development…maybe such programs will proliferate and flourish. It’s time for me to shut up and get involved. No More Victims provides an ideal path for involvement. Take a look, and be sure to have plenty of hankies nearby. If these stories don’t touch your heart nothing will.

In their own words: “No More Victims works to obtain medical sponsorships for war-injured Iraqi children and to forge ties between the children, their families and communities in the United States. We believe one of the most effective means of combating militarism is to focus on direct relief to its victims.”

Dehumanization

Now the camera has moved the two prisoners we saw in  the third image. So we see the back of the victim with the rust-colored garments,  and we get a closeup from behind of the second man. Now I wonder who took the pictures. Clearly whoever it was had freedom to move about the plane. Was this permitted? Were the pictures transmitted in secret? How did  Art Bell get them?

This second prisoner is distinctive because he alone appears plump. We can tell because he wears a sleeveless striped tan and white T-shirt and we can see his fleshy exposed arms and much of his back. He is hooded like all the others, and wears the expensive-looking red-padded earphones. I guess the earphones serve two purposes: first to muffle the airplane noise which is probably intense. But secondly they are for sensory deprivation. The captive has Western-style  trousers and what appear to be unlaced tennis shoes; no socks; metal ankle shackles reflect light. 

Four American soldiers visible from neck down in very background of the photo appear to be conversing because they face one another and not the prisoners. I would assume they are hot, tired, disgusted and on the edge of rage. Do they have a choice? Must they accept this assignment? Did some of them volunteer for it? Have any come forth with testimony now six years later? 

The books or placards I noted in Image three are visible from the front. From this angle they appear to be propped upright as though for the prisoners to read. I cannot make out what they say. Also from this angle I can see how miserably narrow and uncomfortable is the bench the soldiers use. Thought: if the plane goes down, nobody will unshackle these captive victim prisoners. Notice I did not use the Newspeak: ”detainees.”

PRESIDENT OBAMA - END TORTURE ON DAY ONE

Here a single skinny man with skinny ankles  shackled to the floor and hands secured behind his back slumps against the webbing that binds him in the center of the aircraft. His head is averted from two looming huge American soldiers who stand over his left shoulder. The skinny man wears rumpled brown trousers and a sleeveless, sweat-stained tan t-shirt .His face is completely covered with a white apparatus that appears to be a gas mask. His ears are covered with red earphones, as are the ears of  the soldiers. Looking closely you can see the pad under him; this serves as his bathroom. It must be hot, noisy  and unbelievably rank in those big nearly empty planes. 

One soldier bends over the victim. Has he just struck the man? Is he about to? Is he just yelling random accusations? 

To the right of the most menacing guard stands a taller soldier with a bullet-proof vest over a short-sleeved T shirt. He wears a surgeon’s type mask over his nose and mouth, as does another soldier further back in the plane. Who is the winner here? Who the victim?

Circa November, 2002. First shocker

WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW? RESTORATION
OF EVERYDAY HUMANITY MUST BE FIRST PRIORITY
OF NEW OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

The  night of October 24, 2008 was chilly and we sat in bleachers, then stood on a windy ball field in the early autumn dark, getting trained for the morning’s event. There might have been 200 of us; I don’t really know. But there are at least 15 field organizers and each invited at least 20 volunteers and those plus all the national organizers and the sound systems people were there. The Obama campaign; America as one organized community.

Since I turned 67 on October 20, I’ve been feeling my age. Things young people never think about like will there be a bathroom and how long will we have to stand and just how goddamn much will my back and my leg and my knee and my shoulder hurt.

I wasn’t even sure I could find the baseball stadium. Where would I park? These are things you don’t think about until you’re over sixty and night blind.

But I was behind a car with an Obama sticker on McCarran so just followed them and all was good. The baseball stadium was brilliantly lit; I could see it from McCarran, it’s just that I never looked  before. There was a Porta Potty right at the entrance. There were people I knew to huddle with in the bleachers. There was a national organizer who had organized, I think, eleven rallies including I think, the Denver acceptance speech at   INVESCO Field — if not that, other rallies and speeches of great import. I was impressed and  glad I made the effort to get there.

The first thing he told us was: “Don’t run.” If we run, everybody else will start running. Then he told us not to talk to the press unless we’re sure we want to see our comments on the front page of the New York Times the next day. Then the quotidian stuff like who sits where, what are the volunteer jobs, how to deal with troublemakers (tell your field organizer). The secret service will notice anybody weird long before you do; not to worry.

It got pretty old standing around on the field once we broke out into teams. We introduced ourselves which was boring and I told everybody how great Dreams from My Father is which didn’t visibly impress anybody and I decided my field organizer hates me and my back hurt like hell but I didn’t want to acknowledge it and finally we could go home and the bleachers closeness and the huddles were over and I felt pretty much alone but still glad I went.

Next morning didn’t start out all that auspicious. I hate waking to an alarm, but had to set one to  be sure I got up at 4:30 and arrived at the field by 6AM. Despite encroaching senility, my brain retains that blessed function my father’s had as well; it works as an alarm clock. I always get up about 10 minutes before the actual alarm goes off. Maybe I hear the alarm mechanism getting ready, or  I dread being jolted awake so desperately that I wake myself up — anyway I was up.

A long discouraging walk from the distant university parking garage during which I feel so very alone and a bit lost in the predawn stillness. The university has expanded dramatically since I was a graduate student in 1983. Good God, that’s 25 years since I got my M.A….anyway University of Nevada Reno has graciously added signposts to the myriad new alleys and byways they have constructed. I’m approaching from the west today and it all looks different.

Being 67, I now have to wonder when my left leg will give out, but I fortified myself with ibuprofen and pain pill and that plus the early crisp dawn gave the whole experience a very pleasant dreamy quality.

Astonishing to see people — in addition to all the volunteers – already lined up at 6 AM in front of the security checkpoint. Everybody’s smiling; everybody’s happy; a spirit binds us.

By sunup I’m at my assignment: usher in the VIP bleachers. Will I fall off the bleachers? But something tells me not to argue when the officious team leader or whatever she is asks me to go to the top of the bleachers. As the morning progresses, I direct squads of union members in bright orange T-shirts and another union in green shirts to the center where they will show up on camera directly behind Obama.

Political campaigns attract so many control freak type A’s and on an ordinary day this can annoy me. But today it’s all a floating pleasant panoply. I just drift with the tide.

From several pleasant conversations emerge two new buddies to share most of the experience: a retired school principal from Gold Run and his friend, a teacher. I would have liked the friend better, but the principal was the chattier of the two and preoccupied me … no big surprise there…but both intelligent and so pleasant. Imagine. Talking to men who aren’t gruntass thugs or downright lunatics in Nevada. How often does that happen? Of course it happened because these men were from California.

So I had the rare experience of enjoying male company even though the principal was married. These guys were smart enough to tease me about Barnard and why was it exclusive and  discriminatory against men. “They’re just that way” I told them and we all had a good laugh.

Because we were standing on the top tier of the bleachers, we could look down behind the bleachers to see a white tent set up and to the east, Evans Avenue down which, in due time, Obama’s motorcade appeared. I would have missed all this without my two guides. By now I had given up all vestiges of being an usher and I was just a fan. The bleachers were full; the stadium floor was almost full, and people kept filing in. We could see long lines snaking in front of the football stadium and down the hill to our field. I later found out the crowd was 11,000.

By now it was sunny and as dazzling as only October can be. The motorcade stopped so that Obama’s limo was lined up with the tent flap. He met there with VIPs, none of whom I recognized, who had been  standing around and now were ushered into the tent by Secret Service.

Perhaps one of them was a woman I later read about in the paper. Her husband had, horribly and freakily, died of a heart attack while canvassing for Obama. Obama had been in Hawaii visiting his mortally ill grandmother, Madelyn Dunham. Nevertheless, he found time to send flowers to the Sparks widow. He called her as well. At first she didn’t believe it was Obama on the line, but she called back and indeed it was he. He arranged a VIP pass for her and she later told reporters she met with him and they hugged. “I blubbered on his shirt,” she said. (RGJ Oct. 25, 2008, by  TAMMY KRIKORIAN tkrikorian@rgj.com.

Obama finally emerged from the tent at an easy, athletic, joyful lope. He kept the pace all the way to the podium.

After the speech, we had that eagle eye view of his tent perhaps 15 feet below. As he emerged from the field, a woman behind me was screaming “We love you, Obama! We love you!” He looked up and we made eye contact. I waved. He waved back. We were all grinning and euphoric.

Obama is now for me that energy, that run to the podium, that easy wave and grin, that sunny day and those happy, soon to be liberated people.