*****(Warning: Very Graphic Images!)*****
The Anti-War Movement: Hippies had it Right.
God, how I miss OPOL.
"But you know, if you wanna end war and stuff, you have to sing loud," said Arlo. And end a war they did. It was not only by song, not only by protest, it was by the barrage of the REALITY of the horrors of war that woke the American People up to Vietnam.
It was the IMAGES.
Disclaimer: Some of these particular images below have had their validity questioned and lacking citation, the author of this essay wishes you to consider them to be used in this instance as "examples" of rape behavior by soldiers.
I think that the American public doesn't want to look at the horrors anymore. It would make it too hard to exist. Too hard to breathe easy over their lattes, doing nothing about it. They are too worried about keeping their jobs to think about much else.
You see, if they saw CURRENT images, such as this, in Obama's Bagram, done by the US military, they would have to admit we are the barbarians we are supposed to stand against. We are the monsters.
You see, I think the Non-interventionist US blinders that made us delay getting into WWII, the very preconceived notion that "No one would actually do that," DENIAL, wasn't truly awoken until the images from Auschwitz started to roll in.
I think the famous images from Hiroshima woke people to the reality that using Atomic weaponry that melted civilians was horrific, and should never happen again.
I think these images alone brought Vietnam to an end. The body bags, and coffins....
the children....
the horrors of the REALITY that is war....
Without the REVULSION, without the awakening of our common humanity, we would not have collectively rejected our presence in Vietnam.
We would have kept watching Ed Sullivan and while muttering about the sickness in the world, we would NOT have done this:
and this...
And, when, when the PTB tried to put down our resistence, this image made even the straightest and conservatives decry shooting our children down on campuses.
We remembered the GREATER GOOD, throughout all of this.
Now, the press is quieted.
Now the conservatives say images would endanger our troops.
Now, they have convinced Liberals that "war porn" is something we enjoy in some dirty voyeuristic way, and that we must protect the people in these images.
I say, no. Press, show the images.
I say the torture and our silent complicity endangers our troops more than the images and our OUTRAGE and DENUNCIATION of such acts.
I say every human in the images above are HISTORICAL HEROES in that the capture of their demise ensured NO MORE would suffer the same fate.
There IS a Greater Good.
These are the images that brought our all-too-brief objection to the Iraqi war.
This image of before and after of Rachel Corrie woke people up to the brutality of the "settlement" complete disregard of life of Israel's extremists.
The problem, you see, is these images are shown almost solely on the internet.
The MSM will not show them.
Now we are burning bodies in mass graves in Afghanistan, while jeering the people who live there who wish only to bury their beloved dead in accordance with their beliefs.
This is who we are? Is this who we would be if every television set in American showed us the reflection of what we've become?
Our soldiers group raping women?
Does not seeing this REVOLT us? It should, and our REVULSION should bring REVOLUTION!
What kind of world is it, to hide the penis of the rapist, yet show the degradation, the abject horror on the victims face? Are they protecting the privacy of an American Rapist?
I'm sorry.
This is Afghanistan.
This is the human face of drone bombings.
This is Torture:
Revulsion begets Revolution.
The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem.THESE IMAGES SHOULD REVOLT US ENOUGH FOR REVOLUTION.
It worked for the Hippies.
History proves, people.
Humans can block, compartmentalize and justify many things they do not witness.
But make us witness horrors done in OUR name?
Our humanity awakens.
We get PISSED OFF.
We say:
NO MORE!!!!!!!!
Dig?