tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post8666559184892227964..comments2024-03-08T07:09:46.527-07:00Comments on Pro Libertate: Seeking Clemency from a War Criminal: The Case of Evan Vela CarnahanWilliam N. Grigghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14368220509514750246noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-5604018527876237712009-02-08T07:53:00.000-07:002009-02-08T07:53:00.000-07:00how do I get in touch with you? my email is ghostm...how do I get in touch with you? <BR/>my email is ghostmaker2@yahoo.comAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-71778054101701450132009-01-17T03:18:00.000-07:002009-01-17T03:18:00.000-07:00Dixiedog and Sans Authoritas,Just want you both to...Dixiedog and Sans Authoritas,<BR/><BR/>Just want you both to know I did read your replies, and thank you both for your extensive and thoughtful comments.<BR/><BR/>The movie "Blood Diamond" WAS extremely "entertaining." I put that in quotations because it was not what most people would consider entertainment. For me entertainment will never be American Idol, but could be a great church service or a finely performed piece of gospel music. In other words, if it does not lift my soul, I am not entertained. The movie will make you cry, it will make you horrified, it will make you joyful for the possibility of true nobility in even the most cynical of human beings, it will make you despair for the bottomless wellsprings of evil in other human beings, and it will make you profouldly sad at the cesspit of the world that underlies our most outwardly genteel and civilzed society. By the end of the movie, what you may come away with, as I did, was the lesson, "Judge not, lest ye also be judged," and perhaps more critically, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."<BR/><BR/>Please try to find a copy and watch it. It might deepen your faith in the Lord, or it might make you look more strongly to Him as a rock of sanity in an insane universe.<BR/><BR/>My scenario was admittedly artificial. Yes, of course - the hypothetical neighbor was to be an innocent caught up in the evil that so often happens to good people. The scenario was meant to offer you only limited choices, which in a real situation might not be so limited. You added some hypothetical "ways out" which changed the dynamic of the question. Never mind. As I said, I was not trying to trap you or win any arguments, just to ask you to think closely about your code of ethics and whether any rule book can cover all eventualities. I do not believe it ever can.<BR/><BR/>However, this question has been posed to, and answered by, the greatest law expert that ever lived. There was never a rule book larger than the Jewish moral code, and when a scholar asked Jesus which of all the thousands of laws was most important, he boiled them all down to two: Love thy God with all thine heart, and Love thy Neighbor as Thyself.<BR/><BR/>Very, very hard words to live by. <BR/><BR/>Martin Luther King Jr. said it most wonderfully and profoundly: "Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude."<BR/><BR/>Anyway, thanks for your very honest answer. I would ask you though to examine again the emotions which led you to confess with such admirable candor that: "I would from that point forward hunt each one of them down in due time and KILL them. Perhaps, God could restrain me in time and to simply pursue justice under the law..." I like that. Thank you. You are really being honest, and not striking a false pose, as so many people do.<BR/><BR/>Please watch that movie, and put yourself in the place of the characters (something hard to avoid actually - it will suck you in,) and consider whether you would do the same as them.<BR/><BR/>Anonymous, as to whether I am a Christian or not, it is an awfully big question to go into here. Jesus was an extraordinary human being, but infinitely more than that. I only wish most fervently that Christianity had left behind the Jewish Old Testament and simply used the books about Jesus himself. I could much more easily embrace a church which knew only the beautiful teachings of the Son of the One God, and left out all the fire and brimstone, vengeance, capricious cruelty, and banal sadism of the Jehovah of the old Testament.<BR/><BR/>Even though I do not go to any church, Jesus is a balm to my soul, and perhaps God (in which/what/whom I DO believe - this is NOT Jehovah) will bestow on me the grace of aspiring to be a genuine Christian, as Jesus would have encouraged us to aspire to.<BR/><BR/>Words of Jesus which I believe are most critical and profound, and of which I have to keep reminding myself: "My Kingdom is not of this world." Watch the movie Blood Diamond and you will be most forcefully reminded of that. It would be a most marvelous thing too if the churches of America would also remind themselves of that, and stay out of politics. But I think the reason they mess around in worldly affairs is that in confusion and through no fault of their own, but through the fault of Constantine's Council of Nicea in 325 AD, they worship both Jesus AND Jehovah, and Jehovah's kingdom most definitely IS of this world.<BR/><BR/>Amazing race, the Jews. They were sent a succession of magnificent and marvelous prophets, and they never understood even one of them. The prophets spoke of the kingdom of God, and the Jews who wrote the Old Testament thought they were speaking if the kingdom of Jehovah, the usurper of God, the ruler of this world. The same who took Jesus up into a high place, and offered Him all the kingdoms of this world, if He would fall down and worship Jehovah, instead of the One True God who created Jehovah as the jailer of souls, so that He The Unknowable could come to redeem them from prison and set them free.<BR/><BR/>It is all a love story. Vengeance and Justice are of Jehovah, aka Satan, the Ruler of this world, while love and repentance and forgiveness and grace and beauty are of the One God who sent His Son to give Jehovah a swift kick in his inflexible ass and bring His soul children home.<BR/><BR/>Why did Jesus have to be crucified? Because God set Jehovah up as the jailer, (poor fool doesn't even understand that he only functions at the sufferance of God, thinks he himself is god, and says so in the opening words of the Ten Commandments, his Rule Book) so that God's Son could come issue pardons and let the prisoners out of jail. But in order that the whole love-game could work, the rules by which Jehovah operates have to be observed. So there had to be justice served and vengeance exacted for all the sins and crimes which keep us prisoners in prison, and the One who took the fall for us and bore our punishments for us was Jesus. Otherwise, without an inflexible Rule Book: "An eye for an eye," the jail could not function as a jail. Does that make sense?<BR/><BR/>"Judge not, lest ye too be judged." Forgiveness is not an occasional act of God, it is His permanent attitude towards us. Thank God. Otherwise we would NEVER get out of this jail. God loves our sins. They are the means by which He can shower mercy and grace. Jesus came "To call the sinners, not the righteous, to repentance." <BR/><BR/>That's my belief in a very limited nutshell.<BR/><BR/>Thank you both for your candor and honesty.<BR/>Yours sincerely,<BR/>Lemuel Gulliver.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-91158761434413998962009-01-15T07:27:00.000-07:002009-01-15T07:27:00.000-07:00Lemuel Gulliver wrote: "Some who could be saved, i...Lemuel Gulliver wrote: <BR/><BR/>"Some who could be saved, if enough resources were available, have to die, so that others may live." <BR/><BR/>There is a difference between "choosing who dies" and recognizing who must first receive care, lest they all die. Triage is not "choosing who lives." It a sytem whereby one determines how one can save the most lives. The survivors of a triage do not survive by means of the others dying. They survive because they reasonably get treatment first. There is a difference. <BR/><BR/>There is nothing wrong with saving the most people possible. There <I>is</I> something wrong with choosing to save people by means of an evil act. If I remember, you're not Christian, but the man was right, and I repeat it here for others. As St. Paul said, one may not do evil that good may come of it. The end does not justify the means. There are some that say that the end justifies the means. It would take me about 30 seconds to prove to them that they don't really believe that nonsense. But not morally. So I won't.<BR/><BR/>"What people do under duress" and "the right thing" are not always the same, nor can the former change the latter. Duress can mitigate the guilt of the individual who does evil, but it cannot turn an evil action into a good action. Deliberately killing innocents is an intrinsically evil act. Always. Everywhere. <BR/><BR/>What anyone would do under duress is immaterial to this objective fact: no one may deliberately kill an innocent, for whatever reason. <BR/><BR/> -Sans AuthoritasAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-65838355370349086152009-01-15T01:13:00.000-07:002009-01-15T01:13:00.000-07:00First, I enjoy your thoughtful comments on these b...<I>First, I enjoy your thoughtful comments on these blogs. You are absolutely correct in your analysis of THIS particular case.</I><BR/><BR/>I'm honored, thank you. But I'll have to admit that I'm just a more, shall we say, "frank" and "plain jane" conversationalist overall. I truly loathe the thought of tip-toeing around any issue, no matter what it is, as to not offend. That's nonsense to me; one who heeds that thinking might as well be forever silent and never say/print anything.<BR/><BR/><I>However, in trying to live by certain internal rules, life does not always present us such an easy choice.</I><BR/><BR/>I agree. I think I mentioned, in fact, that we shouldn't even expect life in general to be a Cloud-9 experience and nobody should expect it to be such. I've never, EVER said doing the <I>right</I> thing is also the <I>easy</I> thing. Indeed, it's usually very difficult to be sure.<BR/><BR/><I>Let us say you are in the middle of an insurgency. An armed band of men is holding you and your five children and your wife hostage. Seven of you. Also, your next-door neighbor.<BR/><BR/>The leader of this gang says to you: "Your neighbor is a traitor. Shoot him through the head, or else we will kill your family one at a time. Do not try to turn the gun on yourself or on me, or we promise will kill your entire family without exception."<BR/><BR/>You, naturally, refuse. The gang leader shoots your youngest child dead. You still refuse. He then shoots the next child dead. You see that he really is going to kill all remaining four of your family members, plus you, if you do not kill your neighbor for him. You do not know whether, after you kill your neighbor, he might STILL kill you all, but your only possible chance to save your family's four remaining lives and your own, maybe, is to murder your neighbor in cold blood as directed.</I><BR/><BR/>First off, as you duly noted, they may STILL slaughter us. By extension, it would be the height of folly to think these armed men are in any way better or trustworthy than the alleged "traitor" since they didn't simply kill the one they thought a traitor in the first place, but rather takes my family and I hostage and decide to use me as a proxy instead to do their dirty work. Ergo, why would I blindly believe an allegation from strangers/outsiders who've obviously, by your scenario, clearly demonstrated they are quality thugs themselves, that my neighbor is a traitor? Secondly, this argument sounds awfully similar to the tired, worn out argument that we hear from the voluminous copper documentaries where they recommend to the viewers to just do as the thugs command, i.e. give 'em the money, whatever and don't "be a hero" and everything will work out. Bullsense, there's nothing that guarantees my life being retained after I follow his orders and do as he says. This is common sense; I would not blindly entrust my life to a known thug that I, nor anyone else with a picogram of intelligence for that matter, would trust with more mundane matters, nevermind LIFE itself. Yet, folk tend to do just that, thinking the video cams are their insurance/protection and .... end up as a corpse anyway. Blind (rudderless) faith in a thug's piety, especially regarding YOUR life, is an oxymoron.<BR/><BR/>Lastly, what would I do in such a situation? Well, unless one's literally been through a given situation, I admit that it's hard to say with stoic, absolute conviction. And given where you slyly <I>begin</I> your hypothetical scenario - where we're all captured cleanly and held prisoner, without any basis for how we reach this "starting" point makes it admittedly quite difficult. That said, given the hypothetical contraints you've set, I'd try to free my family first and foremost by any means available, first through reasoned, but delicate, argument to the leader then through deception to in some way persuade the gang to release my family. Then, my delicacy would end and either I'd attempt to grab a weapon, or use my bare hands if feasible, and take one or more of them out and make my escape .... or die. In any case, if they killed my family, it's only logical that they'd HAVE to kill me too because I would from that point forward hunt each one of them down in due time and KILL them. Perhaps, God could restrain me in time and to simply pursue justice under the law, providing of course that there is a stable republican form of government, however tenuous, in operation, but the rage would be extreme.<BR/><BR/>Let me add here that a point you're apparently failing to grok is that, by simply "following orders" and killing my neighbor merely in the "hopes" (quite vain hopes in my view) of releasing my family from their thuggish clutches, I'm in effect accusing, judging, and executing my neighbor for my family's travail. What's honorable and righteous about that? Not a damn thing.<BR/><BR/>The overall immorality of your own implied position, distilled by the way you framed it for me to respond, in this hypothetical scenario is quite simple: That is, that in your view, some innocent third party individual or, presumably, a group of individuals, if need be as well, have to die if so ordered by an "authoritative" entity in the HOPE that ones family might escape to live. Ones sense of right and wrong is clearly skewed and his/her sense of justice is not merely skewed, but is really injustice and reprobate if one believes this way.<BR/><BR/>Evan Carnahan's case is but one of many examples demonstrating clearly how foolhardy it is to blindly "do as one's told," especially as a mere commoner or rank and file "piece of the mass" as it were. If the deed(s) in question bring about any heat as it RIGHTLY should, then you, as the "low life" will either be blamed for the deed(s) and/or predictably become a convenient scapegoat. In any case, you'll not only likely pay a heavy price now, but also pay a heavier price later as well.<BR/><BR/><I>I do not know if you saw the movie "Blood Diamond" about the civil war in Sierra Leone. A brilliant movie, which was generally ignored because nobody in America cares about Africa. A man who fled from from Sierra Leone and whom I work with said that movie was about as close to real life as you could make it - absolutely exactly how it was. The characters were faced with many such choices. Truly, a superb and gripping movie. You should please watch it from a moral standpoint and see if you can make a clear moral judgement on the things you see.</I><BR/><BR/>I haven't seen the movie, but I may take a view of it if I get the time. However, and this of course is mere speculation on my part, but I'd venture to say a likely reason the movie is "generally ignored," if true as you state, is because Hollyweird's "colorful" depictions of actual and historical events is often very skewed. And if you think Hollyweird top dogs finance the production of movies (any movie) for mere entertainment value, you're deluded ;).<BR/><BR/>Even so, I'll watch a movie every now and again specifically and solely for the entertainment value. I've rarely constructed a mindset on subject matter culled from songs and/or movies, but the masses at large do construct most of their philosophy, religion, ideology mindsets and their critical "thinking" skills from those sources these days, unfortunately.<BR/><BR/><I>What would you do in the family hostage situation I described, and more important, why?</I><BR/><BR/>Hopefully, that covers the main points as to what and why. BTW, the core of the "why" should already be evident as it was alluded to in my previous post, in fact. Ergo, it would essentially be the SAME in any given scenario. That is, a desire to do what is right, moral, and honorable in God's eyes, not man's eyes.<BR/><BR/>And again, no, it's not easy to operate this way, even with the Holy Spirit within you since you have to yield your will to His, and impossible to do it in our own strength. I do fail often. However, I also expect to receive the due consequences for thinking/doing right or wrong, whatever they may entail. Sometimes they're major, sometimes minor, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but we experience them. After all, every seed sown reaps a harvest.<BR/><BR/><I>PS: EMT responders routinely make such choices. They come to the scene of an accident, they see six dying people, they have to decide which ones they are going to save, and why. Some who could be saved, if enough resources were available, have to die, so that others may live. Let us all pray we never have to make a choice such as this.<BR/><BR/>Your answer?</I><BR/><BR/>True, as wasting life-saving medical care on a <I>mortally</I> wounded/injured victim, especially with limited resources while others, who are <I>gravely</I> wounded/injured, receive no emergency care and would likely die if not for the emergency medical care would be the epitome of incompetence.<BR/><BR/>However, this kind of event in no way even remotely compares to purposely KILLING someone.dixiedoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09845646940134894119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-44898199445780895592009-01-14T22:37:00.000-07:002009-01-14T22:37:00.000-07:00All Right! The old lifeboat exercise! Always goo...All Right! The old lifeboat exercise! Always good for a laugh or not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-83449667016582031152009-01-14T18:59:00.000-07:002009-01-14T18:59:00.000-07:00Dixiedog,First, I enjoy your thoughtful comments o...Dixiedog,<BR/><BR/>First, I enjoy your thoughtful comments on these blogs. You are absolutely correct in your analysis of THIS particular case. However, in trying to live by certain internal rules, life does not always present us such an easy choice. Let me pose a scenario and ask you what you would do. (This is an honest question, not a trick or a trap, and I'd sincerely like to see how you argue your answer, since I can see all kinds of difficulty in making a choice):<BR/><BR/>Let us say you are in the middle of an insurgency. An armed band of men is holding you and your five children and your wife hostage. Seven of you. Also, your next-door neighbor.<BR/><BR/>The leader of this gang says to you: "Your neighbor is a traitor. Shoot him through the head, or else we will kill your family one at a time. Do not try to turn the gun on yourself or on me, or we promise will kill your entire family without exception."<BR/><BR/>You, naturally, refuse. The gang leader shoots your youngest child dead. You still refuse. He then shoots the next child dead. You see that he really is going to kill all remaining four of your family members, plus you, if you do not kill your neighbor for him. You do not know whether, after you kill your neighbor, he might STILL kill you all, but your only possible chance to save your family's four remaining lives and your own, maybe, is to murder your neighbor in cold blood as directed.<BR/><BR/>I do not know if you saw the movie "Blood Diamond" about the civil war in Sierra Leone. A brilliant movie, which was generally ignored because nobody in America cares about Africa. A man who fled from from Sierra Leone and whom I work with said that movie was about as close to real life as you could make it - absolutely exactly how it was. The characters were faced with many such choices. Truly, a superb and gripping movie. You should please watch it from a moral standpoint and see if you can make a clear moral judgement on the things you see.<BR/><BR/>What would you do in the family hostage situation I described, and more important, why?<BR/><BR/>Sincerely yours, <BR/>Lemuel Gulliver<BR/><BR/>PS: EMT responders routinely make such choices. They come to the scene of an accident, they see six dying people, they have to decide which ones they are going to save, and why. Some who could be saved, if enough resources were available, have to die, so that others may live. Let us all pray we never have to make a choice such as this.<BR/><BR/>Your answer?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-21482462806667195282009-01-13T12:37:00.000-07:002009-01-13T12:37:00.000-07:00I’m quite late to the party, but I’ve been lately ...I’m quite late to the party, but I’ve been lately busying my hands and mind with constructive tasks. These debates become increasingly tiring and mind-numbing over time, for me anyhow. Still, I'm glad we have folk like you, Will, still tirelessly stirring the pot, albeit, keenly aware that any constructive result(s) of such hemming and hawing from the fringes and edges are dubious at best.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, I agree somewhat with paul andersen above. Unlike Will, apparently, I cannot see how this young man is considered a “fundamentally decent” individual as Will tends to broadly brush rank and file [commoner] folk (whether military-affiliated or otherwise). That is, depending on whatever particular colored angle he’s attempting to, albeit skillfully, convey. Otherwise, his broad brush is filled with the opposite, especially as it pertains to folk in leadership positions. Perhaps, it depends on ones definition of “decent” I reckon.<BR/><BR/>Will wrote:<BR/><I>Evan Carnahan is merely one of countless thousands of fundamentally decent Americans whose earnest patriotism led them to participate in a world-historic crime.</I><BR/><BR/>Let me see if I can digest this poorly treated effluent. So-called “earnest patriotism” led him to simply follow orders, without flinching or hesitating presumably, to murder an innocent man? Is your thinking perhaps tainted a bit, Will, because Mr. Carnahan’s father happens to be (or has been in the past) a close acquaintance of yours, as you disclosed? I mean, if that’s the case, your position is certainly understandable from the limited and all too vain human perspective, of course, but nevertheless evil is evil regardless. While I would certainly agree Hensley is even more responsible because of his authority position and rank in giving an illegal not to mention immoral order, that fact doesn't provide any shield of an excuse for Evan Carnahan blindly and obediently carrying it out.<BR/><BR/>Here’s the cold reality. If we’re a people (needless to say, I’m convinced at this point that American society collectively is NOT a true believer anymore) who truly believe in self-government and the ability to exhibit self-control in a general sense, we INDIVIDUALLY and ALONE (requiring God’s ever willing assistance of course), have to learn to discern what’s right and wrong, INDEPENDENT of an earthly authority figure or entity, and act accordingly and let the temporal consequences be what they will be. Just because an authority figure orders one to do something that doesn’t mean the person so ordered should “get a pass” for obeying the order simply because (s)he’s a “lowly peasant,” “private,” or of any other stature. We INDIVIDUALLY will be judged for OUR OWN actions and thoughts, irrespective of our relative rank and whether anybody else was involved or not.<BR/><BR/>Yes, if what was presented here is truthful, Hensley should’ve also been found guilty of ordering the murder and given death as a temporal punishment. Regardless, he likewise will also have to answer for HIS OWN actions to the real Judge in the next life independently of anybody else involved; that is, if he never accepts the Judge’s pardon. The great and small, the free and the bond will ALL be subject to the final judgment without the Judge's pardon through forgiveness and earnest repentance.<BR/><BR/>Ergo, we should be much more concerned with whether we’re fllowing God’s laws than we are man’s whimsical laws and statutes, regardless of our temporal stature/rank. When they coincide and align, great and fantastic, but when they don’t, which is historically quite often the case, we should make every attempt to ignore man’s commands and ordinances and follow the Creator’s. In my mind, the anxiety and/or fear that one momentarily experiences over the prospect of temporal consequences, even up to and including death, are always trumped by the eternal.<BR/><BR/>With that in mind, I have to sigh when I hear/read so many folk who are frequently “screaming” their desire for liberty and freedom while simultaneously displaying their obvious own lack of the <I>key</I> ingredients <I>required</I> for genuine freedom and liberty: self-control, and a woeful ignorance of self-government in general.<BR/><BR/>Thus, another reality check is in order: There can be NO genuine FREEEEEEEEEEEEDOM! or liberty without those ingredients. Zero, none, zilch.<BR/><BR/>Will, you appear sometimes, on the surface anyway through your writing, to be one who believes freedom and liberty can somehow inexplicably flourish without those critical ingredients. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be glossing over this man’s role, whether minor or major, in murdering the innocent Iraqi. This man demonstrably lacks self-control. Instead you solely pour your ire upon leaders, leaders, leaders, ad nauseam, i.e. the “Great Decider” and, in this<BR/>particular case, the “little decider,” Hensley, at the exclusion of the one who actually acted out the order, or who pulled the trigger in this case. I'm not saying that leaders are not culpable; they certainly are even more so. However, the individual(s) who actually do the act are guilty of the wrong, no two ways about it.<BR/><BR/>This was also one core theme you seemed to thread throughout your book as well, with which I <I>conditionally</I> disagree. That is, according to your argument, folk will do whatever an authority figure orders them to do as long as the authority in question provides some form of "immunity" and/or perversely assures the patsy about to perform the act(s) in question on a victim that it is "right" or "okay." IF that's true, then we the people can't handle and don't deserve genuine freedom as we obviously lack the ability to self-govern by discerning what's clearly right and clearly wrong and act, or not, accordingly.<BR/><BR/>Again, the reality is that he ALONE made the decision, regardless of the reason (excuse) given, to follow an order to murder an innocent man. That's the crux of it, unfortunately. If one THINKS about it, no humanoid can really make any other humanoid do anything <I>against their chosen will</I>.<BR/><BR/>Now, the person who doesn’t decide to follow through with a command/order may be imprisoned and/or die in the process, of course, but that’s in God’s hands. Besides, anybody possessed of even a residue of Godly wisdom knows full well that life is not going to be a Cloud-9 fantasy experience, especially when one - despite being cajoled, ordered, or commanded by those in temporal authority to act to the contrary - CHOOSES to do the upright, moral thing.dixiedoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09845646940134894119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-23162591794820148312009-01-12T23:49:00.000-07:002009-01-12T23:49:00.000-07:00Dear Will,Please post this below for Sergei.Thank ...Dear Will,<BR/>Please post this below for Sergei.<BR/>Thank you,<BR/>Lemuel Gulliver.<BR/><BR/>Dear Sergei,<BR/>In America, when we whites arrived, we found a people living here, much wiser than we were, whom we in our ignorance took for savages and almost exterminated. These words which follow are from Black Elk, a chief of the Sioux Nation, and if you will, please accept them as an apology for our willful ignorance, and a prayer for you and we to share together for the future of America:<BR/><BR/><BR/>"O Great Spirit!<BR/>Lean to hear my feeble voice. <BR/>At the center of the sacred hoop <BR/>You have said <BR/>that I should make the tree to bloom.<BR/><BR/>With tears running, O Great Spirit, my Grandfather,<BR/>With running eyes I must say <BR/>The tree has never bloomed. <BR/><BR/>Here I stand, and the tree is withered.<BR/><BR/>Again, I recall the great vision you gave me.<BR/>It may be that some little root of the sacred tree<BR/>still lives.<BR/><BR/>Nourish it then, <BR/>That it may leaf <BR/>And bloom<BR/>And fill with singing birds!<BR/><BR/>Hear me, that the people may once again<BR/>Find the good road <BR/>And the shielding tree."<BR/><BR/>Amen.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-77530224485830261382009-01-12T23:04:00.000-07:002009-01-12T23:04:00.000-07:00Ah, this is SO interesting, isn't it.....I can't r...Ah, this is SO interesting, isn't it.....I can't resist sounding off again. <BR/><BR/>Anonymous @ 5:58 pm said: "The American govt and the ruling Elite are utterly vile and corrupt to the core and need to be replaced. Despite this I would still fight to death for my homeland against any foreign invader."<BR/><BR/>Ah so. Dear fellow anonymous patriot, I understand what you say, and this is not aimed at you. But I wish you would take a poll among those Americans like Thomas who see nothing wrong with our invasion of Iraq, and see how many of them agree with you. Then, ask them just exactly how they think the Iraqis feel about US invading THEM. In spite of the horrendous dictator they used to suffer under.<BR/><BR/>Or maybe Iraqis are not supposed to have feelings? Or Native Americans? Or spics, wops, chinks and niggers? I understand the term for an Iraqi and his 125 generations of forefathers in Mesopotamia, the land wherefrom came Father Abraham, ancestor of Our Lord, is a "sand nigger." I guess if you told those good Christian US soldiers that this makes Jesus also a "sand nigger" they might be shocked to hear it. Ask them how Our Lord would feel to hear them describe him in those terms. <BR/><BR/>As if the nails and the whip and the thorns did not hurt enough already.<BR/><BR/>I guess sand niggers and ragheads have nothing to be patriotic about. Five thousand years of civilization, including the invention of the alphabet and writing, and the wellspring of the Jewish race and of the Messiah, count as nothing against American Idol and the Disney Channel. Now THOSE are real cultural achievements.<BR/><BR/>PS: Sergei, I know where you're coming from. You don't really wish to conquer this country. We the American people have no quarrel with you the Russian people, nor you with us. But we are not a free country any more - we have lost our way - we live under the yoke of the rich Jews blinded by greed to any understanding of their own heritage, and their equally rich Gentile accomplices, and their trained puppet politicians with legions of armed thugs to keep us quiet. Sorry. Also, very sorry to say, we cannot guarantee anything will change under Obama, in spite of his mantra, repetitio ad nauseam, about "change." Please come to visit sometime and get to meet us common folk - you will find us a very nice, kind, funny, warmhearted people, millions of us, we peasants at the bottom of the American heap. Just like you.<BR/><BR/>Sincerely,<BR/>Lemuel Gulliver.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-48847983853507252912009-01-12T22:46:00.000-07:002009-01-12T22:46:00.000-07:00Most of you Americans have been conditioned to obe...Most of you Americans have been conditioned to obey your central government's edicts, and so most of you will submit to any martial law order to hand over your firearms rather than risk arrest or something worse. You're a soft and undisciplined people. After years of successive waves of martial law enforcement following your economic collapse, how long do you think you can hold out? After your own army, national guard and police forces disarm you, we'll arrive later as an augmentation. They'll do the initial dirty work, and we'll clean up after them. You are ripe and it's nearing harvest time. A new political paradigm will be forced upon you, a New Life in behalf of a New State that will be quite unlike the aimless leisurely life you're accustomed to. You will become a New Man in the emerging New Reality, and after a few generations, you will not be able to even recall the former life.<BR/><BR/>Sergei M. SidorovAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-82732383093477215282009-01-12T22:13:00.000-07:002009-01-12T22:13:00.000-07:00Having been exposed to such examples of ethical el...Having been exposed to such examples of ethical elasticity, I'm relieved to know that Thomas doesn't post often on Just War theory or military matters. <BR/><BR/>Thomas' flippant disregard for the supreme law of this nation and his accompanying superficial and casual acceptance of the Bush Regime's raison d' etre for the Iraq war is astounding.<BR/><BR/>If he believes the invasion of Iraq was a just and necessary endeavor to protect the United State and its empire, then he needs to put something on the table to defend his view that "the justness of the Iraq War is debatable". Where's the evidence to support the need for such a drastic response? If there is no justifiable moral cause for the war, then Bush and his cohorts cannot be exonerated from their egregiously immoral decision to go to war against a third rate, prostrated nation, which Colin Powell, in a 2002 press conference in Cairo, had admitted was neither a threat to the United State nor to its Middle East neighbors.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-87299489641742973652009-01-12T20:36:00.000-07:002009-01-12T20:36:00.000-07:00Dear Will,I would not waste any more words sparrin...Dear Will,<BR/><BR/>I would not waste any more words sparring with "Thomas." God bless him and give his soul rest, I have seen his kind before. If you tell them "Today is Monday," they will say, "No it's not, it's Wednedsay." You say to them, "Well, yesterday was Sunday and tomorrow is Tuesday, so that makes today Monday," and they will come back to you, "Oh no, yesterday was Thursday, and tomorrow is Saturday." And you say, "But you said today was Wednesday, and now you are saying it's Friday," and they will say "Oh no I'm not, today is the fiteenth of the month, so it must be Thursday."<BR/><BR/>When Thomas has finally argued himself through a 360 degree circumnavigation of his twisted logic, he will discover like Magellan that he comes up one day short. Not to mention one or two candles short on the candelabrum.<BR/><BR/>Not only that, but by a cursory perusal of his twelvendentious (two steps beyond tendentious)verbosity one may demonstrably conclude that Thomas is rapturously enamored of the resonance of his own vocalizations. When he refers to Thomism, it is not, as you supposed, in reference to Thomas Aquinas, but to this one himself. For sure, he IS his own religion, and no doubt he Speaks to Himself in the mirror every morning while shaving.<BR/><BR/>At last! At last! We have solved the crisis of the world's dwindling energy resources! All we have to do is hook Thomas up to a pipeline, and the gas captured therby could power the city of Philadelphia for the next millenium.<BR/><BR/>Anybody else on board with me here?<BR/><BR/>Yours in exasperation,<BR/>Lemuel Gulliver.<BR/><BR/>PS: Blame it all on me. You, Mr. Grigg, are a very nice person, always the perfect gentleman, but I have a nasty streak. As my father used to say to me: "You mean you EAT with that mouth, son?"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-76006855880397271532009-01-12T18:58:00.000-07:002009-01-12T18:58:00.000-07:00No offense Sergei, but Russia is a pretty limited ...No offense Sergei, but Russia is a pretty limited country at this point. utterly rife with corruption and limited on reserves. I really doubt that you guys could pull it off. I for one along with many other friends and neighbors know the woods and valleys of the regions we live in and would in a heart beat defend it from any invader until death. Using any means necessary!.The American govt and the ruling Elite are utterly vile and corrupt to the core and need to be replaced. Despite this I would still fight to death for my homeland against any foreign invader.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-15760651121858644262009-01-12T12:28:00.000-07:002009-01-12T12:28:00.000-07:00I simply never cease to be amazed at the fact that...I simply never cease to be amazed at the fact that naive young Amoricons of each new generation never seem to learn from history and grasp the obvious fact that armed servitude on behalf of the State, especially in wartime, is <B><I>always</I></B> a losing proposition for the lowly bullet stopper. This has been clear since at least the era of the War to Prevent Southern Independence, but has been especially obvious since the end of World War II and in every conflict since. I ask anyone who would dispute this claim to start by taking a stroll through your nearest VA hospital and interview just a small sampling of the residents who have spent years of their lives as inmates there, with their missing limbs, mangled bodies, and pulverized minds, enduring apathy, neglect, and the most substandard care imaginable. Ask them if the "sacrifice" for "freedom" that they made all those years ago as an imperial legionnaire has paid off. Ask them if their lives are better as a result, and if their "grateful" country is compensating them justly for their life-altering sacrifices. Follow this up by talking to those vets plagued by chronic mental or physical illnesses traceable directly to their military service under combat conditions, but who have been denied veterans assistance by a niggardly and self-serving Establishment that broke its covenant to those whom it indentured under arms and who have been discarded as so much human waste once they are no longer useful for fighting on behalf of imperial military campaigns or for positively propagandizing the legions as valiant saviors of democracy. <BR/><BR/>While I sympathize to a degree with Sgt. Evan Vela Carnahan, I also hope that his plight will serve as a loud and clear warning, both to those who aspire to "serve their country" and those currently trapped in imperial service. That warning is that they are nothing but disposable and replaceable tools, cannon fodder for an imperial establishment that cares not one iota about them or their future and that far from "defending American freedom", is conditioning them to be the very organ of said freedom's destruction - provided of course that they survive their "conditioning" on foreign soil before being returned home to wreak havoc on their (mostly) hapless and clueless fellow Amoricons. <BR/><BR/>Some advice for both Carnahans: <BR/><BR/>Repent, Curtis, and realize the fallacy of your core beliefs concerning the nation you live in. Your son's eagerness to join the imperial legions was no doubt motivated to a good extent by your own embrace of the American Exceptionalism that has been an agent of this nation's downfall. <BR/><BR/>Evan, learn from this horrible experience. Once you have served your sentence, hit the road and serve as a counter-force to the State's recruiters for imperial service. Use your own experience and those of your fellow soldiers, those wounded, scarred, and imprisoned for following orders, to dissuade an increasingly brainwashed new generation from following the footsteps of their forebears.liberranterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00555275410576294081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-81516628942093484032009-01-12T12:20:00.000-07:002009-01-12T12:20:00.000-07:00"[I had asked]`Thomas, were you perchance in the U..."[I had asked]`Thomas, were you perchance in the U.S. Air Force? Could this--<BR/><BR/>http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/usaf-blog-respo.html<BR/><BR/>-- be your present gig?'<BR/><BR/>[Thomas replied] No, that’s not me."<BR/><BR/>I'm glad this is the case. I'd hope to see a higher caliber of sophistry in exchange for my hard-earned and easily plundered tax dollars.<BR/><BR/>"I guess those WMD that didn’t exist were the same ones we a) sold him, b) Saddam used on Iran, c) Saddam used on the Kurds, and d) Saddam shipped to Syria?"<BR/><BR/>Let's first underscore the admission here that Washington provided Saddam with his arsenal, which is a partial validation of my earlier point that "Saddam was imposed upon that unfortunate country, and sustained in power, with the aid of Washington."<BR/><BR/>Saddam was thus a client/agent of Washington when he pursued his war of aggression against Iran, and carried out atrocities against the Kurds, in which chemical weapons may or may not have been involved. This would mean that Saddam was an accomplice in war crimes with those who provided him with the means to carry them out -- which leads us, once again, to Washington. <BR/><BR/>Chemical munitions, while horrible, aren't the WMDs the Bush Regime claimed that we would find; the specific and oft-repeated charge involved nuclear weapons (they were being "reconstituted" by Saddam, insisted Cheney in the build-up) or components for the same. <BR/><BR/>As for the weapons supposedly being shipped to Syria, you're assuming facts that are not in evidence, as well as setting up yet another spurious <I>causus belli</I> for yet another war of aggression.<BR/><BR/>The war in Iraq was a criminal exercise in that it was carried out without legitimate authority. I grant that not everyone agrees with that assessment, just as it's true that there are people who insist that various kinds of theft are perfectly legal as long as the practitioners are "entitled" to their ill-gotten gains. <BR/><BR/>Charity does not require that we pretend such arguments have merit, or that they are the product of honest thought, especially when they seek to justify the needless death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.<BR/><BR/>Regarding the supposed obsolescence of declarations of war:<BR/><BR/>"The US constitution is civil law, and when the agent responsible for the execution of the powers assigned to it chooses instead to delegate those powers to another executor, it has effectively abdicated that role. While this is regrettable, the reality of this development is also the reason there have not been litigation by the Congress against the Executive Branch as a result of these wars."<BR/><BR/>I gratefully acknowledge another key concession here, namely that Congress, as I pointed out, abdicated a key function.<BR/><BR/>What you're describing is not merely "regrettable"; it is literally criminal -- namely, the fraudulent conveyance to the executive branch of a power that Congress had no right to surrender. <BR/><BR/>In our constitutional system, sovereignty resides in the people, not in Congress or any other government entity. In declaring war, appropriating funds, or carrying out any other role, Congress exercises delegated and revocable powers. <BR/><BR/>Those powers can be legitimately reassigned, of course -- <I>though a formal constitutional amendment, and no other means. </I><BR/><BR/>The purpose of making Congress the branch with the sole authority to declare war was to ensure that such decisions would be made by those most immediately accountable to the people. The process you describe is one in which Congress was giving to the executive something it had stolen from the people -- and the motive behind that theft, I suspect, was the desire on the part of those in Congress to avoid accountability in making decisions of war and peace. <BR/><BR/><BR/>That there has been no litigation between Congress and the Executive in this criminal transaction is neither surprising, nor of any practical relevance. <BR/><BR/>All of this is (as well as the compound fraud of the Bush Regime's case for the Iraq war) of direct relevance to the <I>jus ad bello</I> element of the Just War test. A government that brazenly violates its own charter in order to inaugurate a war is obviously not complying with the requirement that war be declared by the legitimate authority. <BR/><BR/>As to the actions of <I>Einsatzgruppen</I> and Spetnaz marauders meeting your moral test -- this is not a "straw" argument, but a careful application of your own terms. <BR/><BR/>Your specific standard to distinguish between a private armed criminal and a soldier was that the latter "is acting as an instrument of the just authority, God’s princes on earth" -- "princes" being a category that includes incumbent rulers such as Stalin and Hitler during WWII, a period in which both of them cynically invoked Christian loyalty to the Vaterland/Rodina and to "God's princes" as a means of extracting loyalty. <BR/><BR/>You may have meant to qualify your claim in some fashion, but it's hardly fair to accuse me of peddling straw arguments if you fail to disambiguate your terms carefully. <BR/><BR/>Thanks for the invitation to check out your blog, which I will do often!William N. Grigghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14368220509514750246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-87757622310400469872009-01-12T11:11:00.000-07:002009-01-12T11:11:00.000-07:00Thomas,I hope you read this and are able to respon...Thomas,<BR/>I hope you read this and are able to respond if you so decide. You are correct - Webster's dictionary defines a "criminal" as someone who has been *convicted* of a crime. (Very PC and all that - "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law".)<BR/><BR/>However, does this mean that someone who storms into a university classromm, kills 31 students, then shoots himself in the head, is not a murderer because he was never tried and convicted in a court of law?<BR/><BR/>Was Hitler, who never stood trial at Nuremberg, not a war criminal because he committed suicide and thereby avoided trial, if so many of those following his orders were thus duly convicted of war crimes?<BR/><BR/>It is all well and good to split every hair on this old dog, but I think common usage knows who is a war criminal and a murderer, especialy those who not only do not try to hide or deny their crimes, but instead openly boast of them before open microphones in front of thousands of people.<BR/><BR/>Why don't you apply for the job of Supreme Court Justice? They certainly could use someone like you on THAT bench - and there, I am NOT being funny. They could have used your talents in November 2000.<BR/><BR/>Sincerely yours,<BR/>Lemuel Gulliver.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-78362372087525953782009-01-12T10:24:00.000-07:002009-01-12T10:24:00.000-07:00Will,“A criminal practice doesn't acquire legality...Will,<BR/><BR/>“A criminal practice doesn't acquire legality through antiquity or frequency of repetition; if this were the case, the less popular of the Ten Commandments (viz. those forbidding murder, robbery, and adultery) would have to be considered of nil effect, owing to the millennia of human practice to the contrary. <BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>Nor is the Constitution amended through congressional abdication, or executive usurpation. Its provisions are still intact, still the paramount law governing the government, and every federal official swears before God to uphold and defend it -- not to evade its provisions when politically convenient.<BR/><BR/>Congress was specifically given the opportunity to declare war against Iraq; it chose not to vote that resolution out of committee. Ergo, it did not authorize that war in the only legal manner, as Just War doctrine requires, whatever subsequent actions it took to apply a quasi-legal gloss on the Bush administration's war. “<BR/><BR/>Another red herring. I did not argue that a criminal practice acquires legality through repetition. <BR/><BR/>The difference between the Constitution and the Ten Commandments, of course, is that the Ten Commandments are God’s laws and are binding on the consciences of all men for eternity. The US constitution is civil law, and when the agent responsible for the execution of the powers assigned to it chooses instead to delegate those powers to another executor, it has effectively abdicated that role. While this is regrettable, the reality of this development is also the reason there have not been litigation by the Congress against the Executive Branch as a result of these wars.<BR/><BR/>"Your formulation would require us to assume that any armed, uniformed ruffian acting on behalf of any ruler, is an "instrument of the just authority"; it would consecrate the actions of Iraqi Republican Guardsmen slaughtering Kurds, Nazi mobile death squad cadres mowing down Jews at Babi Yar, or Soviet Spetnaz commandos butchering Afghan children." <BR/><BR/>No, my formulation would not require that. Nice straw man though!<BR/><BR/>"So -- our rulers installed a hideous dictator, then waged an unnecessary war against the country he ruled, followed by a ten-year siege, before resuming undisguised aggression in 2003. And now we're to believe that this enterprise has been morally sanitized -- nay, exalted -- because of the "humanitarian" gestures made by the conquering/occupying power.<BR/><BR/>No, the conduct of the war is simply one component of determining whether a war is just. In this example I compared the means by which the war has been conducted against the requirements of Just War doctrine.<BR/><BR/>"If, as I've demonstrated to the satisfaction of any honest mind, the Iraq War is an innately criminal enterprise, it makes no difference whether it was relatively "humane" in its execution: Every individual killed as a result of that illicit undertaking was a murder victim."<BR/><BR/>Had you proven, rather than alleged, the war was a criminal exercise, you might be correct. <BR/><BR/>I regret that you find that anyone who disagrees with you does so as a result of a ‘dishonest’ mind. Perhaps more charity would be in order.<BR/><BR/>"Yet Bush gave the order and the missiles flew. Thousands died, and about a year later Bush displayed the burdens on his soul by carrying out a skit for the White House Press Corps in which he made light of the absence of Iraqi WMDs. "<BR/><BR/>I guess those WMD that didn’t exist were the same ones we a) sold him, b) Saddam used on Iran, c) Saddam used on the Kurds, and d) Saddam shipped to Syria? <BR/><BR/>"Thomas, were you perchance in the U.S. Air Force? Could this -"<BR/><BR/>No, that’s not me. Visit my blog at http://rightdialogue.com and you’ll see I don’t post often on Just War or military matters.<BR/><BR/>Best,<BR/><BR/>ThomasThomas Morehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13520297059871167327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-12707680068220314892009-01-12T09:55:00.000-07:002009-01-12T09:55:00.000-07:00Considering the father's attitude: "cut off their ...Considering the father's attitude: "cut off their heads and crush them -- we should be acting like a conquering army, forcing them to submit to our will...," I don't feel sorry for him. And the son now in prison seemed to agree if he was enlisted in the US military in the 4th year of the Iraq occupation. Everyone still over there has had adequate opportunity by now NOT to be there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-8204616020157256912009-01-11T21:26:00.000-07:002009-01-11T21:26:00.000-07:00You're a tough guy, Thomas. How about picking on s...You're a tough guy, Thomas. How about picking on someone your own size like Russia or China or both simultaneously instead of Iraq or Afghanistan? No, wait. You tried that through your Georgian proxy in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and got your ass handed to you. To take on a formidable enemy would require courage, so scratch that idea. Right? <BR/><BR/>I love warmongers such as yourself who can concoct any justification or pretext for your oligarchy's wars. And the Anglo-American power elite do have so many more wars scheduled for you American cannon fodder. You'll be swimming in your own blood. I think it was your historian Arthur Schlesinger who once articulated the American cannon fodder's role in paying for a New World Order with their blood and treasure. You'll fight and die for any UN resolution, just as you've been doing in Iraq under UN Resolution 1441. <BR/><BR/>America's sole purpose is to build the New World Order with its regional blocs. And the more you Americans die for that, the less we Russians have to contribute in our lives and wealth for the noble cause of global governance.<BR/><BR/>Your lines of logistics, needed to support your masssive military operations, are thinly stretched out over the entire globe. You insist on maintaining this status quo but are facing, in a few years, a financial collapse and the internal social disorder commensurate with such an outcome.<BR/><BR/>But Russia WILL have a prominent seat in the coming New Order, and when you've exhausted your human and financial resources on foreign battlefields, we'll come to your fatherland, just like we once did in Germany, and break you. <BR/><BR/>Your jingoism will die right along with your culture, your <BR/>belligerence and your American<BR/>"exceptionalism". You Americans insist upon biting off more than you can chew. Unfortunately, the only language you understand is military defeat, but even then you're too hard headed to grasp your predicament. <BR/><BR/>Your tired and exhausted forces, stranded afar and depleted of supplies, will fall into our hands. We know how to torture, for we taught the Vietnamese how to properly 'water board' a prisoner, and we will do this to your abandoned soldiers to elicit any "confession" we want. With your troops all over the world and having fallen into our custody, your homeland will lie there like a vulnerable lamb ignorant of the slaughter that awaits it. <BR/><BR/>Who will save you? We will remold your nation nearer to our heart's desire when our boots step upon your vanquished soil. <BR/><BR/>Best,<BR/>Sergei M. SidorovAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-8821035568201730882009-01-11T20:09:00.000-07:002009-01-11T20:09:00.000-07:00It appears that "Thomas", our friendly, sycophanti...It appears that "Thomas", our friendly, sycophantic DOD mouthpiece for the plutocratic, proto-totalitarian regime, just got 'pwned'. <BR/><BR/>After reading the posted comments, it's ostensibly clear that his artful flourish and spurious logic are no match to Will's arguments and counter arguments; it's always an uphill battle to defend lies.<BR/><BR/>A side note: One could just go to You Tube and pull up that infamous clip where the Regime's Simian-in-Chief adamantly confesses to a cadre of media courtesans that Saddam was not in any way involved with the 9/11 attacks, nor was he connected to the CIA/ISI created Al Qaeda. Hence, there was no legitimate just war cause for the Iraq invasion and occupation. As bad as Saddam was, I don't think the democide he may have ordered against dissident Iraqis would even remotely compare to the number of Iraqi deaths -at least one million- brought about by the last two nefarious front administrations of the Regime in Washington, murderous policies that will, no doubt, be continued by the next surrogate executive frontman. <BR/><BR/>Will owns you, Thomas.<BR/>You just got "bested".<BR/><BR/>Best,<BR/>Yo' MommaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-45209416746226773052009-01-11T11:08:00.001-07:002009-01-11T11:08:00.001-07:00William, as a former Marine, I must say that you a...William, as a former Marine, I must say that you are absolutely correct about how Marines are conditioned to obey orders. We were constantly reminded by superiors that we were never to ask questions. We were told that we were to follow all orders, and ask questions later. There was even a saying in the Corps that went like this: if the Marine Corps wanted you to think, you would have been issued a brain.<BR/><BR/>In other words: the biggest crime in the military is disobeying an order - any order - given by anybody with more rank than you. No matter how unjust, immoral, and illegal the order is. And we were also told that if there was something wrong with an order, that the only "insurance" policy we needed was that we had been given the order. Thus, supposedly, the responsibility would fall on the one administering the order, not the ones following it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-11320155112428516162009-01-11T11:08:00.000-07:002009-01-11T11:08:00.000-07:00William, as a former Marine, I must say that you a...William, as a former Marine, I must say that you are absolutely correct about how Marines are conditioned to obey orders. We were constantly reminded by superiors that we were never to ask questions. We were told that we were to follow all orders, and ask questions later. There was even a saying in the Corps that went like this: if the Marine Corps wanted you to think, you would have been issued a brain.<BR/><BR/>In other words: the biggest crime in the military is disobeying an order - any order - given by anybody with more rank than you. No matter how unjust, immoral, and illegal the order is. And we were also told that if there was something wrong with an order, that the only "insurance" policy we needed was that we had been given the order. Thus, supposedly, the responsibility would fall on the one administering the order, not the ones following it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-79838798687083714052009-01-11T08:01:00.000-07:002009-01-11T08:01:00.000-07:00Thomas @ 9:26, here's an article about the def...Thomas @ 9:26, here's an article about the definition of torture, from a Christian vantage point. Torturing Terms: The Catholic View on Torture<BR/><BR/>http://www.centerforajustsociety.com<BR/>/press/forum.asp?nav=publications<BR/>&cjsForumID=1069Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-86724995911567883762009-01-11T06:11:00.000-07:002009-01-11T06:11:00.000-07:00Mr. Grigg, your posts are so strong and so clear, ...Mr. Grigg, your posts are so strong and so clear, they're a joy to read. The subject matter, of course, is a different story. What a horror you've depicted! Guilt piles on guilt--in this case, starting with Mr. Carnahan and going up to Mr. Bush. And, I'm afraid, we as citizens must come in somewhere on the bloody edifice.Mimihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15017592585596334313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32869165.post-73435524783898870332009-01-10T21:08:00.000-07:002009-01-10T21:08:00.000-07:00Bush doesn't rule anything. He's the loathsome fro...Bush doesn't rule anything. He's the loathsome frontman. Don't get me wrong, he needs to be tried and publicly executed, but the real bad guys are the corporate and financial elite. End the Fed!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com