One aspect of this illegal war of empire in Iraq, that is NEVER discussed but is probably doing far more to fuel the resistance and generate long-lasting repercussions than anything else, is sex. Specifically sex had by Americans and other foreigners with Muslim women, in a country where this is one of the greatest of all taboos.
There are approx. 160,000+ American soldiers and another 120,000+ contractors acting as support personnel there. Not only is this a huge number, but they are now being deployed there for upwards of 15 mos. to 2+ years.
What are they doing for sex while they are there????? Anyone who knows anything about our military, knows that near every one of our military installations around the world, there is a thriving sex-trade and red-light district - Manila, Panama and Vietnam, came to mind as examples of this.
Should we be naive enough to assume that our soldiers are practicing abstinence (as Bush and his evangelical cohorts would advise) while they are deployed in Iraq? While recovering from a fit of laughter that this thought probably has evoked, the questions still remains, who are they having sexual contact with? Surely, it must be with mostly unwilling Muslim women, who have been made into whores and prostitutes and therefore considered irrevocably damaged by their fathers, sons, husbands and extended families.
This is creating a nightmare of unintended consequences, that will haunt us throughout the occupation and far beyond, with the blow back of Iraqi retaliation and the 'shock and awe' of Muslim retribution.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Postscript to the Duke U Rape Case
As a follow-up to my Dec. 28th, 2006 post, all charges against the Duke players have been dropped, the prosecuting D.A. has been disbarred from practicing law, and everyone is wringing their hands at the injustice done to these fine upstanding students at this southern university.
Sure the D.A. cynically catered to the Black community's cries for justice, even though he knew early on that the case against the students were problematical. Of course he had an ulterior motive, he needed the Black vote in his bid to be re-elected, which he was.
Sure, the university, civic leaders and others, rushed to judgement in this case against the students, before all the facts were fully known and investigated. Sure, sometime-ambulance chasers like Jesse and Al, flew into town to weigh-in on the situation.
But what is seldom talked about, is the not-too-distant racist history of North Carolina and the south in general, that made this town and university leaders particularly sensitive to charges of rape against a Black woman. After all, not too long ago, rapes and lynchings of Blacks were commonplace, and would seldom even be investigated, much less the white perpetrators being tried and convicted.
So a plausible rape charge like this, set off serious overreactions, not so much because of this crime, but because of all the other crimes against Blacks in the south, which were never prosecuted. So these students were prematurely charged, due to the history of a lack of charges that should have been, but never brought against a long line of white criminals, some of whom are still walking around freely in the south, and others who were allowed to die uninvestigated, untried and unconvicted.
Lastly, the students were the victims of a confused and unstable alleged victim, and an overzealous, politically ambitious D.A. - so welcome to the real world of what Black defendants routinely go through in the criminal justice system of America. Also these students are now widely portrayed by the media as victims. They have done TV news shows with sympathetic interviewers asking how they survived such an ordeal. The students may have been victimized, but are they totally innocent victims? Rarely is it mentioned that they used an escort service to hire two women to strip and ???? The team house had a well-known reputation for rowdiness and unruly conduct. One of the emails recovered from one of their computers described a fantasy of dismembering one of the strippers. There were other run-ins with the law - 15 of the 47 Lacrosse team members, had been cited for public and underage drinking, and one of the defendants had been arrested in D.C. with other friends for beating a man in a bar while tauting him with gay slurs. According to the escort service, they were led to believe that the strippers would be entertaining for a bachelor party and there would only be five guys there. Also the second stripper said the accusing stripper was okay until she was given a drink by one of the students and became glassy-eyed and unstable.
These are not just innocent students caught up in a situation they had no responsibility for fostering. So a little bit of delayed, blow-back karma, drifted their way, and they did not care for, nor like, how it felt.
So I'm saying to the students, tough! - get over it! - like Blacks have had to do for hundreds of years!
Sure the D.A. cynically catered to the Black community's cries for justice, even though he knew early on that the case against the students were problematical. Of course he had an ulterior motive, he needed the Black vote in his bid to be re-elected, which he was.
Sure, the university, civic leaders and others, rushed to judgement in this case against the students, before all the facts were fully known and investigated. Sure, sometime-ambulance chasers like Jesse and Al, flew into town to weigh-in on the situation.
But what is seldom talked about, is the not-too-distant racist history of North Carolina and the south in general, that made this town and university leaders particularly sensitive to charges of rape against a Black woman. After all, not too long ago, rapes and lynchings of Blacks were commonplace, and would seldom even be investigated, much less the white perpetrators being tried and convicted.
So a plausible rape charge like this, set off serious overreactions, not so much because of this crime, but because of all the other crimes against Blacks in the south, which were never prosecuted. So these students were prematurely charged, due to the history of a lack of charges that should have been, but never brought against a long line of white criminals, some of whom are still walking around freely in the south, and others who were allowed to die uninvestigated, untried and unconvicted.
Lastly, the students were the victims of a confused and unstable alleged victim, and an overzealous, politically ambitious D.A. - so welcome to the real world of what Black defendants routinely go through in the criminal justice system of America. Also these students are now widely portrayed by the media as victims. They have done TV news shows with sympathetic interviewers asking how they survived such an ordeal. The students may have been victimized, but are they totally innocent victims? Rarely is it mentioned that they used an escort service to hire two women to strip and ???? The team house had a well-known reputation for rowdiness and unruly conduct. One of the emails recovered from one of their computers described a fantasy of dismembering one of the strippers. There were other run-ins with the law - 15 of the 47 Lacrosse team members, had been cited for public and underage drinking, and one of the defendants had been arrested in D.C. with other friends for beating a man in a bar while tauting him with gay slurs. According to the escort service, they were led to believe that the strippers would be entertaining for a bachelor party and there would only be five guys there. Also the second stripper said the accusing stripper was okay until she was given a drink by one of the students and became glassy-eyed and unstable.
These are not just innocent students caught up in a situation they had no responsibility for fostering. So a little bit of delayed, blow-back karma, drifted their way, and they did not care for, nor like, how it felt.
So I'm saying to the students, tough! - get over it! - like Blacks have had to do for hundreds of years!
Friday, June 15, 2007
The June 12th Celebrity Crime
This date is the 13th anniversary of the horrific deaths of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman. This crime captured the attention of the nation more than any other has before, or since. Memories do fade, but this is what I remember about it:
The savage and over-the-top brutality, pointed to a professional hit by at least 2 persons - not by a single aging sports celebrity like O.J. Simpson.
The medical examiner, Dr. Golden who did the autopsies, testified at the preliminary hearing, of finding evidences that two different knives were used to commit the crimes. Because this finding did not support the prosecution's theory of O.J. Simpson as the lone killer who killed both victims, he was never heard from again at the trial.
Nicole's mother told a reporter on the day after the slayings, that she last talked to her daughter shortly after 11 pm on the previous (Sunday) evening, upon returning to her home in Dana Point, almost 2 hours from Westwood. If this was true, Simpson could not have done it, because he was in his limo on the way to the airport at the same time. Of course, this was never brought up again, since the prosecution theorized that the crime was committed between 10:15 pm and 10:35 pm.
The police were motivated to quickly solve this high profile crime, and it appears that they 'helped' the evidence along to implicate Simpson who they believed to be guilty. This plot was led by the racist cop Mark Fuhrman, who was not part of the elite investigating team, but inserted himself into the investigation using his knowledge of the Simpsons and their neighborhood. What they didn't count on, was that Simpson would launch his own spirited defense with able and experienced defenders, and challenge all the purported findings of their shoddy investigation.
It strains credibility, that Simpson would be smart enough to get rid of the weapon, bloody clothes etc., but dumb enough to leave one glove at the scene and take the other to his home, and then throw it behind his house. Of course, there, it was conveniently 'found' by none other than Mark Fuhrman - what a coincidence!
The prosecution's star witness, Mark Fuhrman, perjured himself on the stand, and lost all credibility that anything he did or said, was true. He was a major hole in the prosecution's attempt to get a conviction, and he sunk the prosecution's case lower than the sinking of the Titanic. This and other missteps, revealed a team of incompetent prosecutors, who were outsmarted and outmaneuvered by one of the best criminal defense teams, ever! But they still blamed the jury instead of themselves for Simpson's acquittal.
It's more plausible that Simpson contracted with professional killers to do the killings. Had the prosecution pursued this more likely scenario, they perhaps would have obtained a conviction. Instead they pursued a course that attempted to play up the stereotype of the savage, animistic, murderous Black man, who had a history of spousal abuse, and was therefore probably guilty of these horrific crimes. Their case was full of lies and contradictions, and in the end, resulted in Simpson being acquitted.
As of this moment, Simpson is still being hounded for a civil judgement obtained in a subsequent star-chamber preceding before an all-white jury, in a Santa Monica, Ca. courtroom. Simpson was always more comfortable with white folks as friends, lovers, benefactors and associates, now he has to endure the flip-flop of their despising and hatred of him, for the rest of his life.
I can't say I have much sympathy for him.
The savage and over-the-top brutality, pointed to a professional hit by at least 2 persons - not by a single aging sports celebrity like O.J. Simpson.
The medical examiner, Dr. Golden who did the autopsies, testified at the preliminary hearing, of finding evidences that two different knives were used to commit the crimes. Because this finding did not support the prosecution's theory of O.J. Simpson as the lone killer who killed both victims, he was never heard from again at the trial.
Nicole's mother told a reporter on the day after the slayings, that she last talked to her daughter shortly after 11 pm on the previous (Sunday) evening, upon returning to her home in Dana Point, almost 2 hours from Westwood. If this was true, Simpson could not have done it, because he was in his limo on the way to the airport at the same time. Of course, this was never brought up again, since the prosecution theorized that the crime was committed between 10:15 pm and 10:35 pm.
The police were motivated to quickly solve this high profile crime, and it appears that they 'helped' the evidence along to implicate Simpson who they believed to be guilty. This plot was led by the racist cop Mark Fuhrman, who was not part of the elite investigating team, but inserted himself into the investigation using his knowledge of the Simpsons and their neighborhood. What they didn't count on, was that Simpson would launch his own spirited defense with able and experienced defenders, and challenge all the purported findings of their shoddy investigation.
It strains credibility, that Simpson would be smart enough to get rid of the weapon, bloody clothes etc., but dumb enough to leave one glove at the scene and take the other to his home, and then throw it behind his house. Of course, there, it was conveniently 'found' by none other than Mark Fuhrman - what a coincidence!
The prosecution's star witness, Mark Fuhrman, perjured himself on the stand, and lost all credibility that anything he did or said, was true. He was a major hole in the prosecution's attempt to get a conviction, and he sunk the prosecution's case lower than the sinking of the Titanic. This and other missteps, revealed a team of incompetent prosecutors, who were outsmarted and outmaneuvered by one of the best criminal defense teams, ever! But they still blamed the jury instead of themselves for Simpson's acquittal.
It's more plausible that Simpson contracted with professional killers to do the killings. Had the prosecution pursued this more likely scenario, they perhaps would have obtained a conviction. Instead they pursued a course that attempted to play up the stereotype of the savage, animistic, murderous Black man, who had a history of spousal abuse, and was therefore probably guilty of these horrific crimes. Their case was full of lies and contradictions, and in the end, resulted in Simpson being acquitted.
As of this moment, Simpson is still being hounded for a civil judgement obtained in a subsequent star-chamber preceding before an all-white jury, in a Santa Monica, Ca. courtroom. Simpson was always more comfortable with white folks as friends, lovers, benefactors and associates, now he has to endure the flip-flop of their despising and hatred of him, for the rest of his life.
I can't say I have much sympathy for him.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Paid or Caved?
Many believe that the dems recently 'caved' to Bush and his repugs and refunded their war, because of weakness and spinelessness. What is being obscured and ignored, is that both parties are merely voting as their corporate campaign funders, want them to do.
The permanent bases and the world's largest embassy complex in Iraq, is there because the major campaign contributors to the dems and the repugs want them there. We are going to stay in Iraq, and the corporatocracy will continue to be funded there and in any country that has resources we want, because the dems and the repugs are all following the marching orders from the same lobbyists and corporations.
The Military-Industrial-Lobby complex and those who have a geopolitical agenda in the middle east, has paid-off, blackmailed or bribed senators and congress persons in both parties. The war profits and other returns flowing to these sponsors has been huge, and well worth their investments made via campaign funding and contributions.
Democrats who voted for this funding, are not weak nor naive, they are merely prostitutes who are paid to play like the warmongers and war profiteers want them to. The corporate military-industrial complex spreads their compost on both parties, and both parties have been bringing forth a bumper crop of fruit in the form of votes for continuous funding of this war.
The permanent bases and the world's largest embassy complex in Iraq, is there because the major campaign contributors to the dems and the repugs want them there. We are going to stay in Iraq, and the corporatocracy will continue to be funded there and in any country that has resources we want, because the dems and the repugs are all following the marching orders from the same lobbyists and corporations.
The Military-Industrial-Lobby complex and those who have a geopolitical agenda in the middle east, has paid-off, blackmailed or bribed senators and congress persons in both parties. The war profits and other returns flowing to these sponsors has been huge, and well worth their investments made via campaign funding and contributions.
Democrats who voted for this funding, are not weak nor naive, they are merely prostitutes who are paid to play like the warmongers and war profiteers want them to. The corporate military-industrial complex spreads their compost on both parties, and both parties have been bringing forth a bumper crop of fruit in the form of votes for continuous funding of this war.
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