
© EricPetersAuto
I'd like to - and would - if "the troops" were actually defending "our freedoms" - rather than stomping the freedoms of people across the globe. Us included, I hasten to add.
Because you can't expect "the troops" who brutalize people abroad to not come home and abuse the people here. The mindset - and the precedents set - cannot be compartmentalized.
Brutality - contempt for other human beings - cannot be turned off and on. The transformation of
Andy Griffith into Officer 82nd Airborne is no random happenstance.
It has happened for a
reason.
The casual bloodlust of the average American - safely cocooned in front of his TeeVee (probably watching
fuuuuuuhhhhhhhtttttball) also has consequences. Osama was right. You send troops to other people's countries, topple their leaders, drop bombs on them from afar. It tends to annoy those people. Some will try to hit back. We call it "terrorism."
Just as the British of King George III's era called the insurrectionist colonists who dared to fight back "terrorists." Just as Reinhard Heydrich's SD thugs called the partisans in the occupied east a few generations later. Just as we - "we" being the comfortable couch potatoes watching "the game" - call anyone who dares object to the American Imperium - and its imperial storm troopers.
No one wants to hear this, of course.
The troops are "fightin' fer freedom," god bless 'em. Just exactly as the legions of the Wehrmacht had belt buckles stamped
Gott mit uns - and fought for
freiheit, too. Or so they were told.
As we are told today.
The problem is one of separating sympathy for the idealistic kid from StumpJump, West Virginia from revulsion at what the kid from StumpJump, West Virginia, will do in
my name. With
my tax dollars.
Comment: The Guardian fails to mention the 'man' is in fact just 19 years old. Under the headline "Chilling freedom of speech, one poppy arrest at a time", Big Brother Watch writes: