After a soldier slaughters 16 civilians in Afghanistan, President Obama as usual blames the “bad apple” while exonerating the military as a whole.
Bad Apple
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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The military is made up of killers. That’s what they’re trained to do and why they’re given weapons. Add to that formula the dehumanization of “the enemy” and what do you get?
derlehrer
Agreed.
The New York Times writes an interesting article that does the appropriate damage control. It reports that the soldier who shot the 16 people had been sent back into the country after — that’s after — losing part of his foot. He also was “cleared” by the military via a method of brain exam that professionals in the medical field do not put much stock in.
The Times, most emphatically, did not pin the military’s leaders to the wall and scream at them: “What the hell were you thinking sending someone who has been maimed and who almost certainly has shell-shock back into a war zone? You realize this is the same stunt the Catholic Church pulled for decades?”
I sure do hope, as all right-thinking Americuhns should, that this low-level soldier is hung out to dry for this while the upper echelon commanders get their pensions and the cushy speaking engagements.
Unlike those criminals who are NOT members of the US government, the shell-shocked soldier deserves a fair trial, and must be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of military justice.
I want to see the evidence that he did anything wrong. I want to see the illegal photos (if any) that he took. If they can’t prove that he took photos of dead Afghanis, then he’s clearly innocent.
The primary “bad apple” is represented in the poster the G.I. is pointing at: the world’s chronic war criminal, the US commander in chief.
http://tinyurl.com/5uy93
There is significant evidence that perhaps this was not even a one soldier event. Initial reports had suspicious activity involving more. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an operation gone bad and covered up.
I keep waiting for the dittoheads who excuse war crimes to come up with the case of one single “good apple”. Oh wait, they got the good apple locked up in solitary confinement for almost two years now, awaiting his day in a kangaroo court. Nice job, good apple!
Excellent.
Notice that Ted masterfully captured the “Glorious Liberator and Occupier” in his standard pose of always looking forward not backward.
Wonder if the Glorious Liberator and Occupier will use this incident as fodder for the next White House Correspondents Dinner? Who would have thought it possible to top Bush’s “Looking under the table for WMDs” bit until Obama did that joke about sending predator drones after some unwelcome suitors for his daughters.
Perhaps Obama could ape Robert “You talking to me?” De Niro: “Sgt. Bales wasn’t on a killing spree. He just thought he was rescuing Jodie Foster.” (Yuk. Yuk.)
Obama: “This is no time to bale on Afghanistan.” (More laughter.)
This one would bring down the house: “Good thing Sgt. Bales didn’t go on a whistleblowing spree. We’d have to prosecute him for having a conscience!” (Thunderous applause and laughter.)
To steal a line from Michael D. Magee (and put a little twist on it): Our country has become an asylum in which the inmates get comfort from all of them having the same symptoms.
«Bad apples» are one of the inevitable products of war, which is why Principle VI of the Nürnberg Principles, which form the basis of such international law as we have, read as follows :
«The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.”»
When people both in and outside the United States wonder why the irrationality of spending more tax revenues on the military than the rest of the world combined is allowed to continue in that country, they might want to consider that one thing that spending, which brings neither security nor peace, does buy is impunity for officials of the US government (and those of its allies/satrapies/dog-wagging tails) from prosecution for multiple instances of violation of the above principles….
Henri