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Shell shock at a remote fishing beach
Journal of a Futurist - 26 June 2002
Pre-emptive strikes, bad acid & collective guilt
While I’m not a religious person in a churchy sense, the option of atheism seems daft, because so much of what goes on in the world is surely designed to make God laugh out loud…or weep. What a heavenly cascade of bitter laughter must have greeted the tosh from President Bush that Arafat must “go” because he’s been “compromised by terrorism”. Of course Arafat has been compromised by terrorism, just like George Bush, who sent to death and quadriplegia about 5000 innocent citizens of Afghanistan, not including the Taliban. The day the World Court confirms that a bomber pilot is merely an airborne terrorist, only deadlier, will be a big step for humankind.
The hands of Bush are bloodier than Arafat’s, because of the post 9/11 licence-to-kill he issued to Ariel Sharon, who as far back as 1953 was enmeshed in the massacre of 70 civilians in the Jordanian village of Qibya. Kid stuff compared to the hundreds of Palestinian innocents wiped out in the Sabra and Shitila refugee camps in 1982, by forces under Sharon’s command, and for which even an Israeli enquiry found him “indirectly responsible”. It is the remnants of these forces, incidentally, who are so warmly accommodated in Australia by Immigration Minister, Philip Pinocchio Ruddock, who recently claimed he had “collaborated” to re-design British refugee policy, much to the surprise of the British. (Other fibs are exposed in an earlier entry).
As this journal has stated from the start, the war against terror will beget terror, a message that has finally struck a chord with Israel’s defence Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who warned on June 22 that his country’s excesses have become an “incubator of terror”. So why persist?
The Old Testament Says it all Belongs to Us
Keep in mind that the heartless cruelties seen on the nightly news, perpetrated by both sides, were sparked by the calculated act of the serial war criminal Ariel Sharon, who, in September 2000, tauntingly waddled to the site of the Al Aqsa mosque, accompanied by a battalion of security goons. The following day a back up contingent was sent into the area, inciting a fusillade of rocks from the smouldering locals. Why? Since the 1993 Oslo accords, Palestinians had seen 35, 000 acres of their land confiscated for private roads and illegal settlements. Their joblessness stood at 40 percent, poverty had soared, freedom of movement had shrunk, humiliation was daily. No-one cared. Stones were all they had. The Israeli police killed four and wounded hundreds, thus igniting the second Intifada.
By March this year, according to Amnesty International, over 1000 Palestinians, including 200 children, had been murdered, by “shelling and bombing residential areas, random or targeted shootings, especially near check points and borders, by extra-judicial executions and during demonstrations”. The most terrifying insight into the human face of the Israeli war machine was revealed on a recent ABC Four Corners doco on the April “rooting out of terrorists”, which of course fostered the current rash of suicide homicides. The Israeli spokeswoman was creepy, a colonel I think. Every lament from every weeping Palestinian mother nursing a photo of her late, crushed-by-a-bulldozer-toddler, was dismissed as a lie. It was like a John Cleese script. You could have dangled a dead baby in her face and she would have claimed it was a sick parrot.
Far from being compromised by terrorism, Sharon is empowered by it. His nation weirdly veers closer to the ideology of holocaust perpetrators with its latest tactic of punishing the families of suicide murderers – flattening their homes, dragging away the children . This is a capitulation to the doctrine of collective guilt, one of the saddest moments in modern history.
This abomination, along with other doctrinal regressions, must surely force a new generation to disconnect from MTV & rub the sleep from its eyes. The world is turning into a scary place. It has lately being touted that Israel, “for all its faults” is a democracy, and thus impervious to charges of terrorism. Leaving aside the awkward fact that 40 per cent of Israel’s ghetto-ised Arab inhabitants are denied suffrage, the attribute of democracy is no justification for the slaughter of bystanders.
George Bush warns the Palestinians: dump Arafat or I’ll spit on your grave. Yet Arafat has been elected by a much fatter margin of votes than put Bush in the White House. Can you imagine how US citizens would feel if the major nations of the world demanded: “dump Bush or we’ll side with Al Q’aida”.
Another nasty doctrine, the right of pre-emptive strike, has of course found favour in Canberra, eager to send our troops to help bomb Saddam Hussein. The reason? He probably has weapons of mass destruction. Right, and so does the USA – so when are we bombing them? Australia already applies the doctrine of pre-emptive strike to asylum seekers, by incarcerating them on sight. It was a popular doctrine at Scotland Yard in the sixties, when the London Drug Squad swooped on hippies, planted the pot, took them to court.
“We are a good people, I know that.”
It was a chilling moment, watching the Afghani civilian, his face a digitised mask, describe how the American soldier cut off the tongue of a Taliban prisoner of war: "the Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them." Another witness claims he saw a US soldier break an Afghan prisoner’s neck and douse others in acid. A doco produced by Britisher Jamie Doran, Massacre at Mazar, claims that around 30 or 40 US Special Forces took part in the torture of Taliban prisoners at Shebarghan in north-west Afghanistan and almost certainly had a role in the "disappearance" of around 3,000 others.
Much of the footage - shown recently to European politicians - was taken secretly. It substantiates a recent report by the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), that there is evidence of the disposal of human remains at two mass grave sites near Mazar-i-Sharif. In another sequence, according to The Scotsman, a witness admits to having executed prisoners, while another Afghan, said to have been a senior officer under the Northern Alliance’s General Rashid Dostum, was said to have gone into hiding following threats to his life.
“Andy McEntee, former chairman of Amnesty International, who saw the film footage in Berlin and read the transcript, told DPA news agency that he believed there was prima facie evidence of serious war crimes having been committed by US soldiers in Afghanistan. Mr McEntee said he believed the war crimes had been committed not only under international law but also under US law”.
This story, despite a brief airing on ABC TV, has not broken in Australia. Could anyone out there who is up to speed with the US media let me know if this alleged massacre has even been mentioned?
While not leaping to conclusions, I fear that it is highly probable that vile crimes have been committed in Afghanistan by US forces and their allies, including Australians. The disregard at the highest level for the Geneva Conventions is a sure signal of ethical disarray. David Hicks, the yet to be charged Australian prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, is tightly encaged under floodlights, with no access to lawyers. Twice a week he is allowed a 15 minute exercise break. If this is how we are treating our suspects under the spotlight, then what are we doing to other captives in the dead of night? That is, the ones we haven’t sent yet sent to Syria to be tortured. Whatever it is, don’t expect the mainstream media to keep you informed.
Dirty Bombs, Dirty Wars, Dirty Dancing.
Written on June 17, but not posted, owing to an overpowering sense of futility: What ho, Mick, a knighthood? More of that later. Sixty nine prominent Americans have publicly protested their outrage at the war on terrorism. My first reaction: what took them so long? Sober second thought: that’s a bit unfair, seeing as several of the signatories have been jumping up and down from the first blast of the bugle. Still, it strikes me that in a country of 250 million, of which about a million have a modicum of clout, sixty nine is a paltry turn-out. And nine months a damning delay. The dead are many.
The antics of the US Government are now so erratic we will surely see further stirrings of protest. The White House spin doctors, (and their equivalent in Downing Street, one of whom is an old friend, but that’s another story) are probably planning more theatrical distractions to keep the masses paranoid. Did you like the Dirty Bomb? No, not the one dropped on the families of Hiroshima, but the figment launched upon the airwaves by US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, a Christian fundamentalist who speaks in tongues (true!) and is so upset by the bare white marble breasts of Grecian statues, such as the tantalising goddess in a White House courtyard, that he shields their stony nipples with cloth. Ashscroft claimed that John Padillo, a low life crim stuck in solitary without a lawyer, against whom no charges have been laid, was actually a walking, talking, unfolding weapon of mass destruction about to explode inside the Pentagon. The next day Ashcroft was “reprimanded”, whereas he should have been committed.
A couple of years ago it was reported that doctors in Britain had diagnosed a new disease afflicting ageing baby boomers –spontaneous acid flashback. People who took LSD in the sixties and now lived respectable lives - lawyers, teachers, financial advisors – were suddenly struck with powerful psychedelic hallucinations, swept back into a past of strawberry fields, yellow submarines and marmalade skies. Everything around them is suddenly surreal. Mick Jagger must have felt he was in the throes of such a flashback when was rewarded for his prolonged services to supermodels. Wot, me? Personally, I find it reassuring to see a gentleman knighted by the Queen for being himself, no mean feat these days.
At last, a Rebel on the Box
Congratulations to John Safran for a strange, blistering, hilarious mix of soulful piss-taking on SBS TV last Monday, Music Jamboree. A squeaky voice, demonic eyes, he’s a cross between Michael Moore and Johnny Rotten, who has managed to mould a show to his own eccentric aura, rather than endure the usual public castration. There is hope, there is hope….
This email makes me look naive
From John Weiley in Byron Bay: I just read an interesting article in "The Stranger" magazine arguing that over the past 20 years the US press had actually not suppressed news of the brutality of the Israeli occupation ("contrary to the claims of 'left wing' critics")...... The truly frightening thing was that thousands of reports - including vivid press reports of Shatilla and of Sharon's personal earlier history as a terrorist - as a murderer of innocent civilians and Egyptian prisoners - and the public outrage of Americans at all those reports - made NO difference at all.
Just a reminder really that policy is routinely set and implemented with complete disregard for the wishes or best interests of the electorate. If the electorate opposes a policy it is understood in government and business that the required action is not to change the policy but to silence or deflect the opposition.
People have been spun so thoroughly that your unremarkable assumption - that the most rich and powerful people in the most rich and powerful country in the world arrange things pretty much the way they want them arranged - is ridiculed as paranoid raving. Sure they occasionally screw up, but by and large they get what they pay for. Why wouldn't they?
To me it seems there are three countries of the mind - Conspiracyland on the left, Realityland in the middle and Fantasyland well off to the right. The task of news and policy-makers (the bailiffs of the R&P) is to maintain the illusion that everyone lives in Fantasyland (where the Gulf of Tonking incident - and so much else happened) - far from that lunatic world of Conspiracyland a mythical place, much too far away to believe in. If people became aware that they live in Realityland they would realize that Conspiracyland is just up the road.
And the spinners know that even if the truth does eventually leak out it will not impress the people of Fantasyland. Old news is no news. Who cares if Churchill and senior American military staff had prior knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbour, that the appeal from Diem for Australian troops was faked, that there was no incident in the Gulf of Tonking - sure those stories were made up but THIS story is true - I read about it in the Telegraph!
And speaking of Conspiracyland, has it been widely noticed that Robert Maxwell appears to have been replaced by Conrad Black? It would be interesting to track the demise of Maxwell alongside the rise of Black. Have you ever met the guy? He struck me as one of the most thoroughly stupid people I had ever met and I recall wondering afterwards how such a dunce could ever have put together such an empire (which is not the kind of thought you have after a session with Rupert Murdoch for instance.....)
When and where did Black acquire his glamorous, distinctly weird wife - who has recently judged it OK to 'come out' as an ardent Zionist? When and where did someone so thick get the cash to suddenly become such an influential player? Interesting to watch the transformation of The Spectator (a U.K.Weekly) since he bought it. It's traditional, T.E.Lawrence style, sympathy for the Arabs has been eradicated, it's columnists cowered by furious attacks from Mr. and Mrs. Black. The Speccie loses a lot of money but is still highly rated as an policy-influencing journal - cf the recent expose of some Pommie tobacco-pushing flak (who posed as an independent journalist) where he made much of his ability to plant stories in that mag. A good investment for Mossad - but for a business?
ENDS
That’s all folks, I’m off to see Minority Report, which apparently takes the doctrine of pre-emptive strike into the criminal sphere, where it truly belongs. Bye.
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