May 9, 2004

• It doesn’t surprise me.

  Nothing about the prison abuse scandal involving U.S. MPs comes as any surprise to me–

  –not that it happened.  Military troops are trained to be
  violent, and have watched as their comrades-in-arms have been killed,
  mutilated, captured and tortured.  If prisoners in Stateside jails
  and prisons are subject to similar or even worse abuses by their
  civilian guards (and I know this occurs), then why be shocked when
  young war-crazy GIs do it?  Believe the ones who say they were
  “only following orders.”  Humliating and torturing prisoners to
  gain intel is SOP.  The myth that “our” troops are scrupulous in
  support of the Geneva Convention is disinformation.

  –not that our allies knew of it and apparently did nothing. 
  Before 9/11, intelligence sources in various friendly countries had
  information about the plan.   Some of it was even transmitted
  to our intelligence agencies, who had their own sources too.  See
  how much good that did.

  –not that Rumsfeld and Bush et. al. are falling all over themselves to
  apologize.  The empty words, “I’m sorry,” cost nothing to say,
  require no action to implement, and in the minds of the vast majority
  of fools in this culture appear to carry some weight, although I’ll
  never be able to figure out why.  Those in power are also going to
  great lengths to find individuals at the lowest possible level in the
  chain of command on which to lay blame.  That, too, is SOP–and
  that, as any military or ex-military person knows, is standard
  operating procedure.

  I’ve had to correct a much larger number of typos than usual as I wrote
  this.  That’s the effect my emotions have on my keyboarding. 
  It’s not the abusers that have riled me.  I’m fuming over the
  official response, and over the fact that that war-mongering dubya
  asshole and his asshole buddies made this war and put those kids in
  that position in the first place.

  Enough said.
  

  • 4:43 pm
  • 10 Comments