“The War Party’s response to these allegations, and all evidence of the horrors committed by U.S. troops in Iraq – from Abu Ghraib to everyday incidents like the drowning murder of a young Iraqi boy by U.S. soldiers – is that these are just the crimes of “a few bad apples.” The problem, however, is that the tree that spawned them breeds poisonous fruit.
[snip]
The main concern of U.S. authorities, including the military police, seems to be that the gangbangers will utilize their training – and, in some cases, their access to equipment and weaponry – when they come back to the U.S. Only this time they won’t be breaking into Iraqi homes and slaughtering women and children: they’ll be holding up banks and committing crimes of violence in the U.S.
While this is a valid worry, there is no mention, in the Sun-Times piece, of any concern for the fate of Iraqi civilians, who must endure daily indignities and deadly danger from these thugs. If it isn’t all about us, Americans don’t want to know. But with these latest revelations of dark deeds in Haditha, they are going to have it thrown in their faces.”
Link to Chicago Sun-Times article “Gangs claim their turf in Iraq - BY Frank Main Crime Reporter”
markfromireland
No tag for this post.
If you want to know what the U.S. military and Coalition troops are really up to, check out the CENTCOM website: www.centcom.mil.
Sgt. Gehlen
U.S. Central Command Public Affairs
Let’s hope that this new surge of gang violence will wreak havoc on the leafy suburbs (doubtless gated) where members of our current administration reside!
Actually sergeant I visit US military sites with monotonous regularity, CENTCOM amongst them.
Grania,
In terms of them deserving it I agree with you completely, sadly as we both know those who’ll suffer the most are the people who live in the most deprived areas.
We already see some gang violence in Northern California (both Latino and African American). I would suspect that it is nothing compared to what happens in Southern California. Turf wars have been known to erupt in urban schools which has lead to the banning of certain colours (blue and red) However, I was wondering if that particular article wasn’t pandering to the current anti Latino sentiment that is engulfing our nation. Vis a vis gang violence the Russians really are in a class all to themselves.
As to the other comment - somebody has their knickers in a twist!
Yah Grania not the only place either from what I’ve been told. Not sure about the “latino” thing ‘though you could well be right and I agree about the Russian gangs we have the same problem over here.
In a US context the rise of gangs such as the bloods, the crips, etc is understandable enough given how over the last few decades so many have effectively abandoned the cities as living places and commute fairly hefty distances in and out for work.
That that didn’t happen in Scandinavia is one reason why the cities are so safe - you go for a walk at night and look up past street level - there are lights on because people live there. Ranging from very poor to middle class to really rather wealthty in most districts. It’s one of the reasons I like Copenhagen so much - the city deosn’t die at night. Same happened in parts of London, when people moved back in to some areas that were being depopulated crime dropped.
Re: the other part of your comment. Can’t be easy defending the indefensible. ;-)
The unspeakable and their non-speak about the unmentionable because it’s indefensible.
Hah! Mark, there was a certain Richard Gehlen who could speak out both sides of his mouth at once and was a VERY questionable ally. Speak of the devil!
Grania, the Hells Angels gang was formed from a group of disaffected returned soldiers from the Second World War. Perhaps the next incarnation will make the first look like boy scouts.
I agree about the Latino slur. It’s the old divide and rule thing.
I knew that about the Hell’s Angels Griffon would you happen to know whether I’m safe in assuming that other gangs from that era such as the Bandidos are of the same provenance? It’s not really something I’ve ever genned up on.
The rise of gang violence has mirrored the devastation of urban areas and of urban society in many places. Ravaged by crack addiction, drug laws which make young people of color lifelong felons and hence unemployable for minor possession offenses (that privileged youth get sent to counseling for), and the total abandonment of social services since the days of Jimmy Carter have led to a culture of hopelessness and of violence turned inward. Too often the gangs offer young people the only social framework amidst the devastation and the abusive treatment these youths receive when jailed (see the information and programs from The Ella Baker Center for reliable info on the treatment of youths in California - http://ellabakercenter.org/page.php?pageid=10 for example)
We brutalize young people here at home and then send them to Iraq to brutalize their brothers and sisters there.
Don’t know, Mark. My impression has always been that they came later.
FDL have a good discussion on related topic now-
http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/05/22/feeling-broken-but-still-on-the-line/
Link from griffon to FDL
Humph is what I say to most of that discussion griffon. Thanks for mentioning here and the points you made about PTSD were well put - sadly whenever civilians start to bloviate about this ignorant bloviation is what takes place. I also disagree about the sickness talk. The sad fact is that some people will behave in an evil manner in the right circumstances and others are simply outright bad. It’s a comforting lie to say “Oh they must be sick” it saves people having from having to confront the fact that “our boys, our neighbour, our friends, our ….” can be evil bastards. Granted both by character and experience I tend to have a somewhat darker view of human nature than most. But when Hannah Arendt talked about the “banality of evil” she was IMO for once getting things right.
I have to disagree with you ‘though about war not being a natural part of human make up. (See above) I think it is and far more importantly so than the reproductive urge. (Or to put it another way that Freudians and Neo-Freudians are talking a load of egg shaped things that usually come in pairs in a convenient pouch.)
To my mind the territorial urge is the wellspring of much if not most of human agression and in that we’re no different from any other creaturea. We and the higher primates also include in that common instinct sexual agression which isn’t much about lust but is very much about dominance and control. We’re an agressive and warlike species . The differences between us and other species lie IMO in the extent to which we carry it and that we’ll do it for pleasure and the urge to include others of our species under the heading of “territory/property” Societies and laws exist in large measure to protect us from ourselves as societies collapse or begin to decay all sorts of unpleasantnesses start to rear their heads. As to what’s going on in Iraq civilisation is ultimately about ratchets of control put people in situations where they’re 1) afraid 2) out of meaningful control then you’ll get the behaviour that we share with the baboon:
“see the stranger
fear the stranger
hate the stranger
kill the stranger.”
It’s not called the baboon response for nothing. Way too short in one way way too long in another but time presses today.
Thanks for that appropos the gangs - you most likely right about the bandidos the thing that’s now bugging me is that I can’t for the life of me remember whether I found out about the Hell’s Angels’ provenance as part of my (civilian) training or whether it was me reading around.
Link from siun to ella baker centre
Speaking of drugs, prisons, gangs, etc., Chris Floyd has an excellent article up about just that.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=662&Itemid=1
Reading it, I wondered how long it will be before kids are offered a choice between the army and prison. If I have thought of it , you can bet “they” have.
Mark, PTSD is not a sickness but it is a neurological condition which is measureable. Or at least the lack of electrical impulses going from left to the right (or the other way round - I can never remember!) brain cortexes is measureable. The brain does not process experiences that would normally become memories and be integrated. The experience gets jambed in the process and is (when triggered) experienced by parts of the brain (and including sometimes bodily sensations) as happening in the present. It’s not a lot of fun, I can tell you.
But it is not an excuse as you say. I say that as a person with Complex PTSD and I haven’t killed anyone, (including myself!)…… YET!
I agree about the aggressive impulses being part of human makeup. In tribal cultures, there is often constant low level friction between neighbouring tribes. Raiding parties and battles but not War as in destroy your neighbour, his crops, his buildings his culture and making slaves of those who survive. That is something perculiar to “civilised” cultures such as our Western culture.
That is what I mean by War.
It is something else other than conflict. There is an evil component which is intent on destruction and the more the better.
Tribal societies managed to thrive for countless thousands of years but our culture in a few short thousand years is at the point of destroying the whole world’s ecological system, never mind the human race.
It is this meaningless, insane destruction that causes PTSD, IMO, and the ability to percieve that insanity, if not the evil behind it, determines the extent of the PTSD, again IMO.
It’s that component that is not natural and that we are clearly not designed to accomodate.
If it were natural, the US military and Sgt Gehlen would not need to engage in the brainwashing of their recruits, that Siun mentioned, to get them to behave against their “natural’ impulses.
Pardon the “tone” but I get a little worked up on this issue!
interesting discussion …
Griffon - they already offer kids that choice and have for a while, it’s just not formalized. A woman I worked with back in NH had a very problematic son (fights, harassment of gays in a shopping mall, bouts of out of control behavior) and he was specifically given a choice to go ahead with prosecution or “get himself together by signing up” which is what he chose. Of course, he then messed up one more time, drug charges, and in those pre-Iraq days, that disqualified him from service. I suspect that many judges see this as a “good option” for troubled youths … and that it happens more now as the recruiting crisis grows.
A very lively discussion group - too bad I can’t stay very long today. I think Siun hit the nail on the head re our urban centres and don’t even think about getting me started about our two tier justice system.
Yes griffon I know that PTSD is a disorder not a sickness. That isn’t the point I was addressing though. The point I was addressing was that quite a few people on firedoglake during that discussion were taking refuge in “they must sick, this isn’t us, this isn’t the American way” line.
Ultimately my point is the one I’ve been making my entire adult that the greatest single source of evil in the world today is the actions of the USA in other peoples’ countries and that much of the source of that evil is the American insistence that “we’re the good guys” “we’re better than that” “we’re the shining city on the hill” - whenever an entire nation sets itself up as being morally and ethically superior to everyone else then given human nature this barbarity inevitably follows.
I’m not saying that the US isn’t a wonderful country, I’m not saying that many, probably even most, Americans don’t have tremenduous generosity and enormous compassion - they do. But they also have this attitude drummed into them from toddlerhood that “we’re the good guys and we’re morally superior” and they aren’t. It is entirely possible to be both good and evil and that is as true of America and her people as it is of everyone else.
If a people permit themselves to become citizens of an empire - which is what the people of the USA have permitted themselves to become - then given human nature it follows as the night the day that that empire has at its core evil. In order to become an empire a country must first decivilise itself the problem with doing that of course is that you wind up committing barbarities against your own people at home and that is what we’re starting to see.
Can’t argue with any of that, Mark. In fact, I agree. There isn’t a country on earth, though, that wouldn’t go down the same road given the opportunity, which is what you’re saying as well, I think, regardless of the differences in their economic, political and religious systems.
If the US empire crashes, then the survivors will inevitably start working toward their own ascendency if they haven’t started already as I suspect the Chinese and Europeans have. That is no answer.
If genocidal war and competition to the death is an inevitable part of human nature, then we as a species are doomed. There’s no way round it.
I don’t believe it is part of human nature in that’s it’s inevitable. Rather it’s a capacity or potential, I believe, i.e. there’s choice involved.
Yet warfare seems to be universal. So I think the problem lies in what all our (civilised) cultures hold in common. And one of those common tenets is the concept of priviledge and it’s attendent, necessary exploitation.
I am increasingly hopeful for the world because of the extraordinary efforts of many US citizens to turn around this lumbering, looting leviathan that is the US establishment and it’s government. There is a growing awareness of the wrongness of exploitation. The success and support for Ned Lamont is a stunning begining. I only hope that Democrats (and Republicans) that are for reclaiming their Constitution don’t stop there but go on to look for the root causes of empire and eradicate them. I’m talking about systems not human nature.
The US Constitution drew much inspiration from the Iroquois Confederation (which is still in existence) but not enough in my opinion. (To any American readers, or anybody for that matter, “Go read and do likewise”!)
I fear I’ve launched way off topic, but I’m weak, what can I say!
Back on topic, Mark, your quote (upthread) of MLK is spot on. Such an inspiration!