Dear Uncle,
While I appreciate your forwarding an email written by Patton's ghost, it was mindless jingostic crap and full of ouright lies. I love you, because you're family, but I refuse to quietly hit "Delete" and forget about it. Your email said "OK you whining, panty-wasted, pathetic Maggots, it's time for a little refresher course on exactly why we Americans occasionally have to fight wars. See if you can tear yourself away from your 'reality' TV and Starbucks for a minute, pull your head out of your flabby ass - and LISTEN UP!"
I listened. Now it's your turn. So sit down, turn off Fox News, and listen to the truth, for the preacher is on a roll.
Your fake Patton said:
1) "THIS is not 'torture' or an 'atrocity'. This is the kind of thing frat boys, sorority girls, and academy cadets do to newcomers."
Just out of curiosity: Did you read the Taguba Report? Or read any of the testimony by the guards or ex-military? You know, the ones where they talk about raping people, killing people for no reason, forcing male prisoners to perform oral sex on other male prisoners, making them live in conditions reminiscent of Dachau, etc., etc. There were atrocities committed far beyond "frat pranks", and the see-no-evil military apologists like Limbaugh and Hannity can go fuck themselves.
Here's an example. This is from an interview with Aiden Delgado, an Army Reservist in the 320th Military Police Company, who served in Iraq from April 1st , 2003 through April 1st, 2004. After spending six months in Nasiriyah in Southern Iraq, he spent six months helping to run the now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. Remember, 80% of these people were released without charge after the military determined that they were completely innocent.
DELGADO:..The prisoners were housed outside in tents, 60 to 80 prisoners per tent. It rained a lot. The detainees lived in the mud. It was freezing cold outside, and the prisoners had no cold-weather clothing. Our soldiers lived inside in cells, with four walls that protected us from the bombardment. The Military Police used the cold weather to control the prisoners. If there was an infraction, detainees would be removed from their tents. Next, their blankets were confiscated. Then even their clothing was taken away. Almost naked, in underwear, the POWs would huddle together on a platform outside to keep warm. There was overcrowding, and almost everyone got TB. Eighteen members of our unit who worked closely with the prisoners got TB too. The food was rotten and prisoners got dysentery. The unsanitary conditions, the debris and muck everywhere, the overcrowding in cold weather, led to disease, an epidemic, pandemic conditions. The attitude of the guards was brutal. To them Iraqis were the scum of the earth. Detainees were beaten within inches of their life.
DELGADO: T...He showed me these grisly photographs, and he bragged about the results. "Oh," he said, "I shot this guy in the face. See, his head is split open." He talked like the Terminator. `I shot this guy in the groin, he took three days to bleed to death." I was shocked. This was the nicest guy you would ever want to meet. He was a family man, a really courteous guy, a devout Christian. I was stunned and said to him: "You shot an unarmed man behind barbed wire for throwing a stone." He said, "Well, I knelt down. I said a prayer, stood up and gunned them all down."
Q: Commanders permitted use of lethal force against unarmed detainees. What was their response to the carnage?
DELGADO: Our Command took the grisly photos and posted them up in the headquarters. It was a big, macho thing for our company to shoot more prisoners than any other unit.
Q: When did all this happen?
DELGADO: November 24th. The event was actually mentioned in the Taguba Report, under Protocol Golden Spike. And there's more... I got photos from the guy who was there, my friend. I have a photo of a member of my unit, scooping out the prisoner's brains with an MRE [meals-ready-to-eat] spoon. Four people are looking on, two are taking photographs. If you remember the Abu Ghraib stuff that came out on CNN, this kind of stuff was common. You see guys posing with bodies, or toying with corpses. It was a real common thing in the military, all because the guys thought Arabs are terrorists, the scum of the earth. Anything we do to them is all right.
Eh fuck it, they're just a bunch of towelheads. Worse than niggers. The US military can do no evil. Besides, some crazy sand niggers cut off some of OUR people's heads! Two wrongs make a right, baby!
- A question for you: Do you think George Patton would have put up with being bossed around by some pansy-ass rich-boy CinC who went AWOL?
- From your email: "How many more Americans must be beheaded before you stop blaming Bush for all your troubles -- and grow some balls for a change."
I'm really thinking there is only one proper way to respond to this and that is with a hearty FUCK YOU. My country's problems ARE my problems. Balls? I don't see Sean Hannity volunteering for service. Rush Limbaugh got a deferment because he had a BOIL ON HIS ASS. Cheney?
Five deferments. Bill O'Reilly? Three. Tom DeLay? Three.
Yeah. Balls. From people who only encourage the use of OTHER people's balls.
The thing is, I don't blame Bush for my personal problems. I blame Bush for lying to the Congress, the military, and the American people in order to go to war against a country that turned out to be less of a threat to the US than the Hare Krishnas. I blame Bush for failing to find Osama bin Laden (you know, the ACTUAL threat) because troops were being prepared for war in Iraq instead of looking for that motherfucker. I blame Bush for record deficits, kowtowing to Jerry Falwell and the rest of the American Taliban, and being on vacation 43% of his presidency.
I blame Bush for being too fucking stupid to realize that the brief he received in the summer of 2001 (while he was on vacation, natch) entitled "Osama bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" meant exactly what it said.
I blame Bush for spitting on the Constitution (read the Preamble lately?): Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, the PATRIOT (hah!) Act, arresting peaceful protesters, undermining the financial health ("faith and trust") of the United States (did you know that's a Constitutional requirement?) I blame Bush for the decline of the dollar and the resultant rise in oil prices. But most importantly I blame Bush for Diebold voting machines, undermining in this country the very democracy we are supposedly fighting for in Iraq, cheapening the life of every soldier lost. In short, I blame Bush for every policy failure his administration has had.
And from what I can tell that's every policy.
Grow some balls? I'll show you balls. Better yet, I'll show you balls and brains instead of knee-jerk jingoism and apologetics.
-= J