by cameronreilly | Mar 22, 2015 | geopolitics, Iraq
This is a pretty powerful post by Dan Crimmins (aka /u/mopecore), a former American soldier who says he was deployed in “11B from 2002 to 2008. Iraq in 2005, then again in 2007-08, during the Surge. Both tours, we were at distant outposts, (Fob Wilson in 2005, PB Eagle, COP Cahill, and COP Carver in 2007-8)”.
You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.
His follow up post from a few days ago is also worth reading:
It didn’t occur to me, at the time, that maybe some of their grievances might be legitimate, that they were acting out of fear and a sense of powerlessness as much or than out of hatred. That I bought into the narrative without applying really any critical thought, by giving over to emotional outrage masquerading as righteousness, by assuming the cartoonish media that I consumed had any relation to the real world, I made a mistake, and people died because of it. I’m painfully aware of the man’s tendency towards tribalism, what you describe as the hivemind, the tendency to view everything as my team against your team.
He’s now unemployed, suffering from PTSD, and trying to raise some support funds via GoFundMe.
by cameronreilly | Mar 22, 2015 | geopolitics
Apparently the Australian and US governments are convinced that we each have homegrown terrorists who are planning on carrying out some nefarious deeds on our respective countries. What I want to know is – why aren’t the U.S. drone-bombing Australian and American homes? It’s apparently a perfectly good solution for suspected terrorists in other countries, so why not start with us? Sure – for each suspected terrorist (and it’s important to remember that these people have had no trial to determine their guilt or innocence) they target, somewhere between 15 and 30 innocent civilians are killed. But that’s just acceptable collateral damage, right? As someone said to me on Facebook a couple of days ago, it’s just unfortunate. It’s just unfortunate that we have to kill innocent civilians to save innocent civilians from being threatened by a terrorist who one day might kill… innocent civilians. Right?
Of course, the U.S. aren’t drone bombing suspected terrorists at home or in Australia or the U.K. or Canada. It would be totally immoral to justify killing innocent civilians in order to kill someone who might, one day, kill innocent civilians. Can you imagine scenes like this on our home turf?
So if it is immoral to kill innocent civilians in the hope of hitting a suspected terrorist at home, why is it acceptable to do it overseas?
Because they aren’t us. Because they aren’t white. Because they have a religion we don’t understand. Because they are inferior to us.
If you think it’s acceptable to kill their civilians, but not to kill our own with the same justification, then you must think we are superior to them. We have more rights than they do. And I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of racism.
by cameronreilly | Mar 21, 2015 | Australian politics
According to The Age, the Defence Minister says Afghanistan will “never again” be a safe haven for terrorists.
And on the very same day, The Independent says they already have a foothold.
By the way, Prime Minister, the reason soldiers were maligned after Vietnam wasn’t because they didn’t have a welcome home parade – it was because that war was immoral and unjust.
The PM also thinks Afghanistan is a better place now.
It seems like he hasn’t been keeping up with the news.
by cameronreilly | Mar 20, 2015 | activism, geopolitics
Chris Hedges, a much respected journalist, wrote this speech which he intended to deliver at a conference on Toronto recently but his plane was delayed due to weather. It’s worth reading in full, but here’s a taste:
The elites and their liberal apologists dismiss the rebel as impractical. They brand the rebel’s outsider stance as counterproductive. They condemn the rebel for being inflexible, unwilling to compromise. These elites call for calm and patience. They use the hypocritical language of spirituality, compromise, tolerance, generosity and compassion to argue that the only alternative is to accept and work with systems of despotic power. The rebel, however, is beholden to a moral commitment that makes this impossible. The rebel refuses to be bought off with government and foundation grants, invitations to parliament, television appearances, book contracts, academic appointments or empty rhetoric. The rebel is not concerned with self-promotion or public opinion. The rebel knows that, as Augustine wrote, hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage — anger at the way things are and the courage to see that they do not remain the way they are. The rebel is aware that virtue is not rewarded. The act of rebellion defines is its own virtue.
Thanks to Duncan Strong for the link.
by cameronreilly | Mar 19, 2015 | Australian politics
I’ve seen a number of posts on Facebook today where people say things like “I don’t care, I’ve got nothing to hide”. I used to think like that too. But the bad news here is that it isn’t you they care about.
Let’s think about a couple of scenarios.
A journalist or an activist is trying to build a story around government or corporate corruption. The government or corporation in question gets wind of it. They can use this mass surveillance to dig up any embarrassing details about this person’s life and threaten to destroy them if they proceed. Let’s say the person has been having an affair or just talking shit about their boss in an email. When the security state has unfettered access to everything you’ve ever written or said on the phone or searched for online, they can destroy anyone who poses a threat to them.
A politician is trying to push through some major changes to, let’s say, election funding or corporate fraud or cutting back on the military. Again, this kind of unfettered access means that any past mistake or screw-up in their lives can be used against them, to stop them from pursuing their agenda of change.
This isn’t a crazy theory. If you read about what has happened in the last 100 years of history when the security state got out of control, you can see this kind of thing in action.
The Stasi in East Germany.
The KGB under Stalin.
The FBI under Hoover.
The CIA under …. well just the CIA forever.
Hell, even the NSA today.
The more access we give security agencies to have unfettered access to our personal information, the more damage they can do – not to you or I, we don’t matter – but to the people who are trying to curb their power or change the system.
That’s why it matters.
