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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Thursday, November 27, 2003
One aspect of Liberation In a story from Tuesday, which I found via Justin Raimondo's "GO F*CK YOURSELF, MR. PRESIDENT" column, the AP writes: One of four American MPs charged with beating prisoners of war at a detention camp in Iraq said Tuesday: "We were doing our jobs. ... It is war. It is not back home where everybody is safe."While perhaps not an isolated incident, this ought to be at least as big of a news story as allegations against former pop star that are extremely vague at this point in time. I mean it isn't as if those who support the "war on terror" can't say that what this case really makes clear is that the military won't tolerate this type of abuse. Smart folks of a different persuasion then could point out that yes that is true but such incidents could fuel anti-occupation sentiments and also that the desire of the U.S. military to look like it is not brutalizing the Iraqi people probably stems from the quite understandable desire on the part of Team Bush to not inflame those inclined to such sentiments. Then they could say another product of this desire is that the U.S. did not just go in and engage in regular slaughters, even though such a move could have a avoided a lot of the current problems. And the dialogue on t.v. would be far smarter than it currently is or probably will be in time soon, if ever. On a related note, Rory McCarthy writes in yesterday's Guardian: The US military has paid out $1.5m (£907,000) to Iraqi civilians in response to a wave of negligence and wrongful death claims filed against American soldiers, the Guardian has learned.McCarthy goes on to write that these incidents are creating opposition to the occupation. |