Marc Perkel Rantz

Who knew what when? The next scandal

Please link to this page and this video

Congress and Bush are complaining that they didn't know - that they were never told until they saw it on the news. They promise that this won't happen again. Well - lets put that to the test.

48 hours ago I posted a video produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that documents a mass murder of 3000 Afgan prisoners in 2001 after the American Telaban was captured. Here is that video:

Afgan POWs Killed - 55mb Quicktime Format

Here's another link:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3267.htm

Looking at my log files I can see that out of over 7000 downloads that about 100 of them came from military installations. Specifically from an army base in Fort Leonardwood and the Navy Base in San Deigo, so - the army knows about this. The question is - now that they have seen it - will the military cover this up?

I just had a discussion with my girlfriend about this. She contends that there are honorable people in the military who will do the right thing and make it public and come clean and face the music. I have the opposite opinion that there is in fact not a single honest person in the military and that they will do everything in their power to cover it up and conceal it.

Time will tell which one of us is right. Quite frankly - I hope she is.

So you ask - what good does this do to expose American atrocities? Doesn't that help the enemies of freedom? The short answer is - no - what hurts America is that it happened in the first place. But there's something even worse than that it happened in the first place - that we get away with it.

If this is something that is occurring we can not get away with this because if we get away with it then we will do it again and again. We won't stop doing it until we are seriously busted and pay the price and put systems in place to ensure that we never do this again.

I think about how Hitler started. He committed similar atrocities and he got away with it. The more he got away with the more he committed till they got to the point where it was unstoppable. Now it is us who are starting down that path of torture, rape, and murder.

The reality is - what's happening in Iraq is in part a result of the fact that they got away with a far greater abuse of power in Afghanistan. We stuffed 3000 POWs in trucks and allowed them to suffocate. We left them there in the hot sun for a week. Then we shot the survivors and burred them in a mass grave. And - we got away with it.

Who are we and what are we becoming? Is this who we want to be? I'll answer that - no it is not. So - I say to you in the military who find this web site and see this video and who sit back and do nothing. I say to you - you are fucking cowards - no better than Nazis. I say to you - Fuck you! I have no respect for cowards who sit back with your mouth shut and let it happen. It doesn't take courage to fight and die. Nazis did that just fine. The ones who truly have courage are the ones who stand up for what is right.

There is no difference morally between those soldiers who commit atrocities because they are ordered to and soldiers who lie and cover up atrocities because they are told to. If you see this video and you keep your mouth shut - you are as bad as those who did it. Is there no soldier who has the guts to stand up and say, "This is wrong and I am not going to participate in this!" We know about what happened in Iraq because someone had the courage to do what is obviously the right thing to do. So - I say to the military - who's side are you on? Do you serve the People or do you cover your own sorry butt?

So - are you brave enough to stand up for what is right? Tell me who is going to win the bet - me or my girlfriend?

Posted by marc at May 7, 2004 07:16 PM | TrackBack