'I'll Huff And I'll Puff
And I'll Blow You Away'
From Judith Moriarty
noahshouse@adelphia.net
7-9-4

Believe it or not, there are still many people in this nation,
horrified and sickened over the deaths of numerous innocent civilians,
who endured numerous years with the monster Saddam that we created.
And now under the guise of "democray,freedom,liberation,soverigntry ?
" Oh, I forget; it now appears that being an Iraqi citizen can have
you shot down like a rabid dog in the streets. "Off with their heads.
Sentence now, verdict later". The Queen of Hearts.

Haidar Khani is dead. Driving a beaten up Toyta near Baghdad's
administrative center, four American Humvees came up behind the little
car, slamming it up against the grille of an Anglican church. An
American soldier, than calmly fired two shots at the 31 year old man.
Exiting the car, blood streaming from his neck, he collapsed and died
on the sidewalk. The same soldier then aimed at the passenger, Mahmoud
Jassam, and shot him in the arm. Mahmoud, Haidar's cousin, told of how
they just ordered announcements for Haidar's marriage. Haidar is now
dead. The charge? DWI-Driving While Iraqi.

Western journalists were on hand having witnessed this senseless
killing. "I was just arriving at the Hotel. I saw it all. The Humvees
were driving very fast and crashed into the Toyota. And the American
soldier fired on the driver and his passenger in cold blood. It's
really a crime", related Taher, a CBS television driver. Iraqi police
arriving on the scene were heard saying "These dogs, these sons of
whores"

Beheadings, whole families shot up in their vehicles, Shock and Awe-
end of the world mushroom clouds, 500 lb Daisy Cutter bombs rolled out
of planes; rupturing citizens internal organs, and eyeballs, melting
weaponry; leaving people charred like briquettes, cluster bombs filled
with thousands of shards of ripping steel, suicide bombers strapped
with explosives, the world has gone mad with bloodlust.

Seemingly, our military is now following the same tactics as the
Israeli Army, in bulldozing homes and ploughing under olive groves.
Doors are kicked in, and citizens dragged from their homes; bagged and
arrested. A recent report had soldiers throwing two young men into the
river and laughing, as one who couldn't swim, screamed for his cousin
to help him. He drowned this young nineteen year old Iraqi boy. Ali,
the 11 year old boy who had both his arms severed, when at the start
of," Shock and Awe," a cluster /incendiary bomb hit his family's
remote farmhouse. Dead were his entire family, including his pregnant
mother. Ali with arms gone and third degree burns, was eventually
taken to Kuwait and then Great Britain for treatment. He was fitted
with artificial arms, the left one, merely cosmetic, as there was
nothing left to work with. Numerous little boys like Ali never made
it.

What have we wrought, when for conquest, strategic location and a
nation's resources, we have children killing children? The average age
of today's soldier is nineteen. I can tell you from first hand
knowledge, that a nineteen year old, hardly has the sense he was born
with (there are noteworthy exceptions). Juiced up on testosterone,
life's a beach. Cars, girls, cruising, spring breaks, concerts,
hanging out at the mall, and keg parties. This is a rebellious,
invincible age, where advice or warnings are scored. Regretfully as a
nation, we are observing how some never do attain maturity. They
merely dress up in designer suits, keep their calloused hearts beating
with medical wonder drugs, and surround themselves with flags. Jocks
without mettle, stamina, courage, integrity, valor or honor, they have
no problem training other people's children to kill for them.

These pompous, arrogant, egotistical, clowns with hatchets, dress up
in costumed flight suits and rub their beefy paws in glee as they
decide in bunkered war rooms; of technological wonderment, who to
bomb, shred, or annihilate next? What fun, bloodless war games. If not
playing with their newest global destroying weaponry, they're
traveling the globe meeting with others of their ilk. A conference
call might save millions upon millions of dollars, but then what fun
would that be? Here they can show their prowess and machismos ordering
out thousands of couch potato mercenaries to dress up as Ninja
Warriors (just like TV) and club, gas, shatter jaws (with plastic
bullets), shock (with stun guns) and arrest seniors, students, and
working people who dare to question the plans of a global plantation.

How does one turn a smart alec kid into a trained killer? Simple you
send them to basic training. Soldiers are to kill. The sole purpose of
a soldier in the military is to kill the enemy, whether with a knife
or bayonet, gun, or rifle or machine gun, shooting a missile or
pushing a bomb down over an unsuspecting farmhouse. Because depriving
another person of their life is against human nature every recruit
must be trained to kill and be able to do so on command by his officer
without affecting his conscience. Boot camp training results in
changing or obliterating the inherent nature of the person. This is
accomplished through indoctrination, training in the use of weapons
and through repetitious simulated techniques of killing. The military
is not in the business of creating better citizens or psychologically
healthier individuals. Many when discharged cannot adapt. Military
training socializes their members in such a way, that they are less
capable of handling the stress and strain of normal, everyday life.
The primary goal of the military-training is to make people obey
without regard for their own physical safety or the objective morality
of whatever it is that they are being told to do. Ex: The
tortures-homicides-and sexual degradation of prisoners. This is
achieved through depersonalization. The ideal graduate of military
training is an individual in a dissociative state, awaiting
orders-capable of killing on command.

Naturally those already unhinged or suffering undiagnosed mental
problems may find the military the perfect place to act out their
perverse, warped fantasies, of killing and doing it legally or with
little accountability. Think this isn't possible? Think again. Years
ago I witnessed, supposedly ordinary citizens, working in an
institution commit the most heinous of acts on helpless, voiceless
individuals. Don't let appearances or soft spoken eloquence fool you.
Evil doesn't always exhibit itself as a slithering, reptilian
creature, from the outer darkness. Time Daily writer Frank Pellegrini,
took a leave of absence to join the Army Reserves. He writes of his
experiences in boot camp.

"Kill! Kill! It was Sunday, and the platoon was stuck with a training
session. This was as good as it gets so far. Bayonet drills. Fifty of
us in an empty classroom, slashing, thrusting and smashing our way
through imaginary commies, yelling, 'kill' with every move and tossing
out the creeds in unison. Blood, blood, blood makes the green grass
grow, drill sergeant!" and "Kill, kill, kill with the cold blue steel.
But it's amazing what an eight-inch blade will do for an empty gun,
even sheathed, and what a little savagery will do for a soldier-in
training who's beginning to think he's going to maid academy. Kill!
***** right. Kill! Oh yeah, this was the stuff."

But why are we shocked? After all we're old hands of witnessing
killing right here on our own soil. We've got our own Drug War with
the same mentality of boot training camp killing. Who can forget the
little Cuban boy, Elian Gonzalez with MP-5 machine guns in his face.
But while this elicited much outrage because of its coverage it's all
too ordinary. Only thing is we're too busy being distracted with the
electioneering of Red, White and Boo, OJ's massacre, Clinton's antics
in the Oral Office, Janet Jackson's sorry breast, her bleached brother
dancing on car roofs, being told how great the economy is, with
America's towns echoing and rusting; or the eight day test pattern of
President Reagan's beatification and send off, to that ranch in the
great beyond. The only thing missing was Dale and Roy Rodgers waiting
on the distant hillside singing " Happy Trails".

Take the case of Scott Bryant. Thirteen Wisconsin sheriff's deputies
burst into the 29-year old's trailer on the night of April 17,1995,
executing a no-knock warrant. Bryant who was unarmed was shot and
killed during the assault while his 7 year old son looked on. Police
seized less than three grams of marijuana. On review, the county
district attorney found that the shooting was "not in any way
justified". Too bad Scott wasn't a baseball player, a politician's
relative, or some movie star. Sometimes victims possess no drugs at
all. Just ask the family of Annie Dixon, an 84 year old grandmother
shot and killed during a 2 a.m. drug raid of her east Texas home in
1992. No drugs were found on the premises. One officer later
hypothesized that his gun accidentally discharged when he kicked open
Annie's bedroom door. No less vicious was the 1998 shooting death of
Pedro Oregon Navarro by Houston police. Six officers stormed his home
at 1:40 a.m. in a military style raid after a man arrested for public
drunkenness said Pedro was a drug dealer. Agents shot the half-awake
man 12 times, killing him. A search of his premises produced no
illicit drugs or weapons.


Think that your wealth will protect you? California rancher Donald
Scott, 61, met a similar fate in 1992, when a team of local and
federal agents burst into his mansion during an early morning raid
(with forfeiture agents). When Mr. Scott, thinking he was being
invaded by burglars reached for a pistol to defend himself. He was
shot dead. Mr. Scott had a huge ranch worth 45 million dollars. An
investigation by the Ventura County district attorney later revealed
that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department had fabricated
evidence that Mr. Scott was cultivating pot because it hoped to seize
his property, which was adjacent to a federal park. Ventura County
officials eventually agreed to pay the Scott family $4million in
damages, the federal government agreed to pay $1 million. Nobody went
to jail. For this grave injustice and premeditated murder citizens of
California, and we paid the tab.

On Sept 29, 1999, Denver Swat agents descended on the home of Ishmael
Mena. Mr. Mena was the 45 year old father of nine children. He was
shot eight times and killed by police in the unannounced raid. No
drugs were found. Police had an incorrect address. An equally vicious
and unthinkable raid claimed the lie of Revered William, a Black, 75
year old, retired Methodist minister. His elderly wife had gone out to
the store. He was sitting quietly near the window, in his sparsely
furnished apartment, when Boston Police crashed through the door. Drug
agents chased Reverend Williams to his bedroom, shoved him to the
floor, and pointed guns at his head-inducing the vomiting and heart
attack that killed him. Boston Police Commissioner Paul Evans later
admitted that the police raided the wrong apartment. "If that is the
case, then there will be an apology" he said. An apology! Since when
did an apology raise someone from the dead? Two years later, the city
(tax payers) paid a $1 million settlement to Reverend William's widow.

On and on it goes, dozens and dozens of people killed, Rodney King
beaten down in the street. Amadou Diallo was shot in the lobby of his
apartment. This man was merely coming home from work and taking his
keys out of his pocket in the lobby of his apartment. How was he to
know that cowboy drug agents (he never was involved in drugs) were
lying in wait to cut him down in a hail of bullets? Kent State, Move
(they dropped a bomb on this Philadelphia block) Waco, Ruby Ridge etc.

Terrorism. "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by
a person or an organized group against people or property with the
intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often
for ideological or political reasons". Many of these drug busts or
actions such as Waco/Ruby Ridge (check out testimony of hearings) are
done for the purpose of future funding. Terrorism. "The act of
terrorizing, or state of being terrorized, a mode of government by
terror or intimidation". Jefferson. How can we, in all honesty say,
that since 9-11 no acts of terrorism have taken place in our nation?
An act of terror isn't the method, the group, or the number of people
killed. Can one possibly imagine the terror of Reverend William's last
moments? Sitting peacefully in his home and then attacked by a gang of
police. What of Mr.Scott, asleep in his home? His last moments filled
with terror because government officials wanted his property!

One has to wonder who these masked men are? What training have they
had which would so cause them to brutalize people? These were ordinary
people asleep in their beds, reading in an armchair, returning home
from a day's work. All non-threatening, all unarmed, all no threat to
flak jacket-helmeted police with assault guns. What psychological
testing has been done on those entering the military or those involved
in any type of police work? If one has to now have a background check
for the most menial of jobs, what about those with guns, clubs, tanks,
missiles, and bombs? What utter hypocrisy has zero tolerance for
normal childhood behavior in schools, while those in positions of
authority, suffer no consequences when killing innocent people?

No amount of duct tape or plastic sheeting would have protected these
people from harm. If we are training men to kill, that everyone is the
enemy; Iraqi or American (in civilian clothes). Who is safe? Yes,
President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, can laud security. Why not?
Armies of troops surround them wherever they go in their armored
vehicles. Concrete barriers and snipers on rooftops watch every
suspicious move. Whole towns or countries are shut down when they
travel. Mr. Cheney went from bunker to bunker during the 9-11 crises.
We were told to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting! If a family, a
grandmother in her bed, a minister reading the Scriptures, is not safe
in their own home then nobody is safe. I say we stop the terrorism
here on the home front before searching out those hiding out amongst a
population of 1.6 billion.

William Pitt expressed the importance Americans once placed on the
sanctity of the home from trespass when he said, "The poorest man may
in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be
frail-its roof may shake-the wind may blow through it-the storm may
enter-the rain may enter-but the King of England cannot enter-all his
force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement." The fact
that our government and law enforcement now view the sovereignty of
the home as a quaint anachronism should frighten us all. Think of
Reverend William's last moments. Think of all those cut down in the
rush and trill of killing another. Haidar, of Iraq, was not a "camel
jockey, towel head, sand ***** or rag head". He loved and was loved,
and now he's dead. His "liberation" saw him bleeding to death in a
gutter shot by those who came to rescue him from Saddam! Will we ever
know sanity again with such acts as these? Let us pray. "In This
Universe The Night was Falling, The Shadows were lengthening towards
an east that would not know another dawn. But elsewhere the Stars were
still young and the light of morning lingered: and along the path he
once had followed, Man would one day go again." Arthur Clarke, The
City & The Stars