Saturday, March 8, 2008

THE BANALITY OF VIOLENCE There was a hype some days ago about prince Harry being 'a hero'. Of course he denied being a hero. It's supposed to show how decent a guy he is. But isn't all this part of a sickening propaganda campaign? What moron first introduced the word 'hero' in relation to Harry? Silly Harry is just another hooligan who loves violence, whatever, wherever. He is part and parcel of our present culture of violence. No wonder kids are on killing sprees. And for Harry it is all so much fun. Independent: "Never has a young man looked as happy as Prince Harry did shooting away at suspected Taliban positions, near the town of Garmsir in Helmand province last week. After the crushing disappointment he suffered in not going to Iraq in 2007, the chance finally to deploy on operations as a forward air controller (responsible for guiding fighter jets and helicopter gunships to their targets via radio) will have come as a thrilling relief from the grim monotony of life in barracks. Indeed as Harry said himself: 'This is about as normal as I'm ever going to get.' Did he say normal? If dropping bombs on Afghans and fighting from a base in Helmand is as close as Harry will ever get to normal life, then it's a sad indictment of his existence back home. But the real point here is that life for Afghans in Garmsir has been very far from normal since we Brits arrived. Put simply, this is a disastrous military adventure and not a just war. Tragically, the fact that many soldiers are killed in these operations serves only to strengthen the myths of heroism and sacrifice that the Army relies on to pursue these adventures in the first place. These ideals allow the admirable personal qualities of soldiers killed on operations to be readily confused with the nature of the conflict. Partly a psychological defence mechanism, it allows soldiers to come to terms with the deaths of their colleagues without calling into question the fundamental reason for such deaths. So if the Army is blinkered in its lust for action, and lied to by its government, surely the media are there to point out unpleasant truths. At this point the images of Prince Harry blasting away on a machine gun seem dangerously close to propaganda. While his bravery and commitment are beyond doubt [sic - you may as well say 'stupidity'], his 10-week stint in Helmand has revealed itself as a PR recruiting stunt, cooked up by the MoD and facilitated by the media's collusion." There is always an easy reason for violence, it's for mom, for freedom, for 9/11, for God or whatever. See, without them there would be no reason in it at all. You have to sex it up a bit, otherwise it would be what it really is, stupidity, greed and hatred. What is the purpose of the war in Afghanistan? Is something changing for the better? GlobeAndMail: "Most aid organizations quietly withdrew their international staff from Kandahar in recent weeks, the latest sign that the situation here is getting worse. It's now almost impossible to spot a foreigner on the city streets, except for the occasional glimpse of a pale face in a troop carrier or a United Nations armoured vehicle." In the name of morality, freedom and democracy, everything, including morality, freedom and democracy, is sacrificed. Those politicians blowing their trumpets most sweepingly are the greatest liars, cheaters and criminals. President Bush will be known as the president who reintroduced torture. The example set by the big shots is echoed by the lower ranks. Salon: "One year ago, the Inspector General's Office - the independent audit arm of the DOJ - issued a lengthy report detailing that the FBI, for the years 2003-2005, had used 'National Security Letters' (NSLs) to gather information on thousands of Americans in violation of the law. Pursuant to the Patriot Act, 'NSLs' permit the FBI and other federal agencies to obtain all sorts of invasive information from telecoms, Internet and email providers, even health care providers and the like without any judicial warrants or any other oversight of any kind. A new report to be released this week by the IG, as confirmed yesterday by FBI Director Robert Mueller, details that these abuses continued unabated throughout 2006 as well. It seems there are a few brand new lessons that we can perhaps draw from these revelations: (1) If unchecked power is vested in government officials, they're going to abuse that power; (2) If government officials exercise power without real oversight from other branches, they're going to break the law and then lie about it, falsely denying that they're done so, insisting instead that they're only using their powers to Protect Us; (3) Allowing government officials to engage in surveillance on American citizens with no warrant requirement ensures that surveillance will be used for improper ends, against innocent Americans." MiamiHerald: "Bribery. Drug trafficking. Migrant smuggling. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is supposed to stop these types of crimes. Instead, so many of its officers have been charged with committing those crimes themselves that their boss in Washington recently issued an alert about the 'disturbing events' and the increase in the number of employee arrests.'' The fact that our criminal politicians get away with so much is proof of the fact that our democracy no longer works. Our politicians are hollow men. And the gullible citizen doesn't want to be aggravated, he doesn't want to know, he sticks to the convenient lies he is being told, but the banality of violence is right in his home. 'For mom.' 11:59:45 AM

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