Pattern of Force

Rigorous Intuition
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/


Even for those who try to pay attention to what filters through the fog of war crimes, these things tend to run together. Haditha isn't Abu Sifa where, according to Iraqi police, US forces "on a rampage" executed a family of 11, then bombed their house, burned their cars and slaughtered their animals. What more will we hear of Abu Sifa, now Haditha has become the representative and inevitable example of honour's exception?

Because along with Haditha comes Jesse Macbeth, allegedly a former Army Ranger and Iraq war veteran, whose claims that massacre was method rather than madness rapidly went viral on the Net. His story was unsubstantiated and exteme, yet plausible because it was extreme, and provided a template to the pattern of force on exhibit in Iraq. A pattern rarely admitted by the West's institutional media.

But Macbeth, it now appears, is the Pentagon's timely strawman to buttress its case for Haditha's exceptionalism, and to discredit influential anti-war voices such as Iraq Veterans Against the War. Whether unaware or not of his status as a COINTELPRO asset, it doesn't matter, because regardless, Macbeth became a lucky charm for those who refuse to believe the program of horror in which US troops are engaged, and there are many. Similar stories may now be said to have been "debunked," without examination or a straining of battlefield ethics.

More http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/

Hala Jaber and Tony Allen-Mills, New York
Claims of atrocities by soldiers mount
THE villagers of Abu Sifa near the Iraqi town of Balad had become used to the sound of explosions at night as American forces searched the area for suspected insurgents. But one night two weeks ago Issa Harat Khalaf heard a different sound that chilled him to the bone.

Khalaf, a 33-year-old security officer guarding oil pipelines, saw a US helicopter land near his home. American soldiers stormed out of the Chinook and advanced on a house owned by Khalaf’s brother Fayez, firing as they went.

Khalaf ran from his own house and hid in a nearby grove of trees. He saw the soldiers enter his brother’s home and then heard the sound of women and children screaming.

“Then there was a lot of machinegun fire,” he said last week. After that there was the most frightening sound of all — silence, followed by explosions as the soldiers left the house.

More http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2103695,00.html

The really insane part is that within a generation the lessons of Viet Nam were buried.

Attended a Memorial Day ceremony yesterday where Iraq was barely mentioned. Disconnect b/w past and present. Afraid the psych effects of this war will be like nothing ever seen before.............................................................. :cry:

For the Military & the Pentagon in particular the lesson learned from Viet Nam
was get control of the media and use it to sell War.

on a zombified public that forgets the lessons of............................

He rarely posts here anymore but when he does it's always very informative.

His blog is excellent you have to have a really open mind or you'll spend
a lot of time thinking what WTF
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/