Inside - ColdType

LAST WORDS
As we were finalising this issue on May 29, America’s Memorial Day,
we received the latest rant from correspondent David Rubinson’s Drant Daily
(rubinson@kab.com). With the latest storm breaking about American
war crimes in Iraq, it echoes what many of us are thinking
MEMORIAL DAY?
Now come all the impassioned eulogies
for Our Troops. Lies, all of it.I do
not support our troops. I do not support
anyone's troops.
It is emblematic that throughout the USA we
dedicate an official holiday to the deification
and glorification of “our” warriors.
All across America today, people of every
kind, hawks and doves, peaceniks and sabre rattlers,
pro-war and anti-war, are stepping up
proudly to proclaim that, whether they support
the war or not, they support our troops.
I do not support our troops. They are not
mine. They are not admirable brave men and
women, nor are they fighting for our country.
They are certainly not fighting for me.
They are murderers and killers, torturers and
rapists, who have willingly committed inhuman
and unconscionable acts on uncountable victims.
Some of them may also be victims but all of
them are perpetrators.
Many of them may be reluctant warriors, but
all of them have the moral obligation to refuse
to kill, and choose instead to follow orders.
They may have been sent to do the filthy
work of insane power mongers and incomprehensibly
greedy pigs, but the filthy work they do
– often, as can be seen on countless video clips
– with gusto and relish.
America looks out into the world, and sees
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not the hundreds of thousands of humans we
have killed, wounded, or burned beyond recognition,
but sees only its own brave soldiers, as if
they were the victims.
And this of course is why we go so easily into
war. For Us, the Others don’t exist. It is all about
Us, and Our sons and Our mothers and Our
children.
Supporting Our Troops means we support
ourselves, and rationalizes what we have done.
For each of us has made the same moral
choice as each of the soldiers. Each of us has, in
one way or another, followed orders, and death
and destruction have been the result.
We must find the courage to NOT support
the troops, and NOT support what we all have
committed. We must blame the troops, and
blame ourselves, and take full responsibility for
what we and our soldiers have done.
Today should be called Victims’ Day.
A day for the nation to stop everything and
contemplate and examine in extreme detail,
everything we have brought on humanity. For
centuries.
A day when we individually and collectively
face the truth.
Today let us mark the beginning of redemption
by memorializing and humanizing and glorifying
the victims of our crimes. Let us march
and sadly display the tragic photos of those we
have killed, and not of Us, their killers. CT