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War Quotes by Roedy

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©2008-2017 Roedy Green of Canadian Mind Products
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Quotations are selected from this pool (and other quotation pools) in a pseudorandom way every hour and inserted at the top and bottom of some of the major pages on this website. Feel free to copy any of these quotes and paste them for whatever purpose you please, including on your own website, blog, social media page or forum debate posts.

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

I don’t think anyone who did not live through the 1962-10 Cuban missile crisis can appreciate how terrifying it was. Kennedy and Khrushchev were like two gunslingers trying to dominate each other. Kennedy demanded Russia remove missiles from Cuba. But in return he refused to remove missiles from Turkey aimed at the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The irony was, the missiles in Turkey were obsolete, and had already been ordered removed, to be replaced by Polaris submarines. Kennedy was willing to risk global nuclear war so he could publicly appear to have totally dominated Khrushchev, by offering nothing in return. Thankfully, saner heads prevailed and the USA secretly agreed to remove the Turkish missiles. Kennedy damn well deserved to have his fool head blown off on 1963-11-27 after that testosterone-fueled stunt.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

2001-09-11 Culprits

The 2001-09-11 attacks were over in hours. America’s revenge has dragged out for 16 years, 6 months and 30 days killing millions of people who had absolutely nothing do with 2001-09-11. Even President Bush admitted the Afghans and the Iraqis had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. He claimed the attackers, including bin Laden, were Saudi. Americans are utterly insane to be proud of themselves for this behaviour. Not even the Nazis were that obsessed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

2001-09-11 Deniers

Swallowing George Bush’s account of 2001-09-11 is as naïve as believing in the tooth fairy just because your older sister told you so. Even if they were telling the truth, it would be illogical to believe them, simply on statistical grounds.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

2001-09-11 Evidence

The only evidence I am aware of that bin Laden masterminded 2001-09-11 was a video tape claiming responsibility. There were dozens of other fruitcakes also claiming responsibility. The head of German intelligence said they had been monitoring Al Qaeda and it was a rinky dink outfit incapable of orchestrating 2001-09-11. They have done nothing comparable since. There are dozens of unexplained inconsistencies in Bush’s version of what happened, including why the towers fell faster than Newton’s law for free fall predicted. Why then are all Americans so totally convinced bin Laden pulled this off without any inside help?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

2001-09-11 Exaggeration

Even more than a decade later, the media refer to 2001-09-11 as the defining event in world history. Yet if you think about it, it was pretty small potatoes compared with nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the buzzbombing of London, the firebombing of Dresden, the bombing of Baghdad or the levelling of Fallujah.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

2001-09-11 False Flag

After studying the evidence for 16 years I have come to the conclusion that most likely Al Qaeda and Muslims had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. It was a false flag operation cooked up by American radical Christian neo Conservatives designed to whip up hatred for all Muslims and thus justify invading, slaughtering Muslims and stealing oil. The head of German intelligence said Al Qaeda were completely incapable of such an operation. Al Qaeda has pulled off nothing comparable since, which confirms that assessment. Bush’s story is so full of holes it even violates Newton’s laws of motion.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The 2001-09-11 Miracle

The official story is a rinky dink, broke, untrained, terrorist outfit orchestrated the most complex terrorist act in history, completely defeating the combined efforts of a multi-trillion dollar defence system using nothing more than a few box cutters. How do you explain it?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

2001-09-11 Oddities

It has been 16 years and 7 months since 2001-09-11. According the George W. Bush, Al Qaeda pulled of the most intricate terrorist attack in history. There are still hundreds of unanswered questions about how Al Qaeda could possibly have defeated the entire US military, without inside help, armed only with box cutters and how they managed to bring down the three steel frame buildings (the first in history) with relatively small fires. Perhaps, the oddest thing is the way Al Qaeda has not managed to pull off anything more impressive than the guy who set his shoes on fire ever since. I would have expected them to attempt to pull off something even more spectacular, especially since the US attacked both Afghanistan and Iraq, not like Cinderella’s pumpkin, turn into utterly inept amateurs.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

2001-09-11 Perpetrators Did Pay

I have heard many Americans say, We have to make the people pay who flew planes into the World Trade Center. Perhaps they don’t believe Bush, who said they did pay — burned alive in the attack.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

2001-09-11 Surprise

Between 1949 and 2001 the USA made over 200 unilateral, first strike attacks on various second and third world nations. How could they possibly be surprised someone might get so irritated at being attacked that they would attack back on 2001-09-11?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) source: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got To Be So Hated

2001-09-11 Was Not the Biggest Catastrophe

Even 16 years later, Americans still act as if 2001-09-11 were the worst catastrophe in history. They forget America obliterated two Japanese cities with atomic bombs. They forget nearly every European capital sustained worse damage in even a single night of WWII (World War II) bombing. Americans have grossly overreacted, invading two nations who had nothing to do with 2001-09-11 and abrogating the majority of their constitutional rights. They fully deserve the moniker The Excited States of America.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

2015-10-13 ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) attack on Paris

Here are some random thoughts on the attack:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Abandoning Children

What kind of father or mother abandons their kids for a year at a time to go to Iraq or Afghanistan to hunt, kill and torture children and their parents who are no threat whatsoever to the USA?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Aborting Killers

What if we could detect the genetic defect like the Aurora shooter and either abort him or correct the flaw in the womb? The catch is you would also correct those guys who are first in line to enlist for the Iraq war too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Accomplished Objectives

What objectives of the Iraq war have been accomplished?
Confiscate Iraq’s oil. Americans speak of the war as an investment and the oil fields as the return. Civilised people would call it the spoils of war.
Punish Saddam for allegedly trying to kill W.’s daddy.
Depose Saddam.
Kill Saddam.
Confiscate Iraq’s seed genome of hot weather crops needed for global warming conditions.
Spend almost a trillion dollars on products and services from political contributors.
Leave a stable US-friendly puppet government in power.
Find and destroy WMDs (Weapon of Mass Destructions).
Weaken Islam.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

It is notable that the USA auctioned off Iraq’s oil resources to American and European oil companies on the very same day Obama announced the troop withdrawal from Iraq. Clearly that was the day the USA felt its true mission in Iraq had been accomplished. The public goals were accomplished within months or days. Those were clearly not the entire set of goals or the war would not have dragged on and on the way it did.

Addicted to Killing

On 2010-08-18 the USA brought back 60,000 combat soldiers home from Iraq, leaving 50,000 advisors behind. Most of these people have killed or tortured someone, including children. Such killing corrodes and twists the mind. For many soldiers, the excitement of killing is addictive. 60,000 trained killers thrown onto the streets of America without jobs! This is poetic justice for America turning a blind eye all these years to the illegal Iraq war, justifying the carnage because Americans would prefer lower gas prices.

Impersonal killers are like drug addicts. The first time gives them the ultimate high and after that, no high is as good.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Addiction to Power

It is hard to believe that men can become so addicted to power that they will mow down their own neighbours just to cling to it. What a monumental egos these men must have to justify that.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Addled Americans

Americans have been so addled and lied to by their media they can’t tell the difference between a war hero and a war criminal. Heroes defend and save lives. Criminals kill people for no reason. A case in point, Dakota Meyer of Kentucky who chose to go on an all expenses paid safari to Afghanistan where he bagged 8 Taliban. The Taliban had not attacked the USA. Further, they had no means to even get there much less attack. No Taliban were involved in 2001-09-11. This was a straight forward aggressive (first strike) war. That is flat out illegal. Anyone who aids or abets in such a war has committed a capital crime. Dakota Meyer is an admitted war criminal. Legally he is on par with a confessed serial killer, mind you with lower probability of successful prosecution. Why did he do it? It certainly was not to defend the USA. The pay was terrible. The conditions appalling. Surely it was not just a way to escape loved ones. There are much easier ways to accomplish that. What’s left? He likes hunting humans the same way he likes hunting squirrels back home in Kentucky. He gets a quasi-sexual thrill watching their heads explode. The US military offered him immunity from prosecution for his future crimes that would have rated lethal injection back home. It is revolting seeing the president touching the hand of such a pervert and trying to fob him off as a hero by awarding him the Medal of Honor, dishonouring all true recipients of the past.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Advantage of War

The one redeeming virtue of war is that it helps kill off the sociopaths faster.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Advice to Psychopaths

Imagine you had a criminal mind. You fantasised endlessly about bullying, raping, torturing and/or killing. You may focus on some particular gender or age of victim, or your desire to mayhem may be diffuse. You have to keep this secret and your urges bottled up. If you let them out you have to be extremely careful that the combined global police forces don’t track you down and lock you up. What can you do? The obvious solution is to join the US military. You will be paid to do your favourite things. You won’s be punished and you will be, strangely, highly respected by your fellow citizens.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Advisors

Kennedy fired up the Viet Nam war by sending 12,000 advisors. Obama postponed ending the Iraq war by leaving 50,000 advisors behind.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Afghan Aftermath

On 2012-05-30 the USA announced yet another push in Afghanistan. This is all so pointless. When NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) leaves, Karzai will last all of 15 minutes. This dragging on the war until after the election is just procrastination of the inevitable to avoid embarrassing Obama. That is really sick, needlessly sacrificing people on both sides of the conflict for domestic political gain. If the USA were serious about democracy in Afghanistan, they would back a plausible puppet dictator, one who was not the biggest heroin dealer on the planet and the world’s crookedest politician. Karzai must really suck to be worse than the Taliban.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Afghan Drugs

Listening to President Obama speak about his valiant fight in Afghanistan against drugs, you’d never guess it was the USA and its corrupt Karzai puppet government that saw the drug trafficking jump from almost zero to the #1 supplier of heroin in the world, producing over $1 trillion worth a year — more than the entire planet consumes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Afghan Facts

The basic facts of Afghanistan are these: The USA plus Nato has tried for over a decade to conquer Afghanistan. It has poured billions of dollars into it. They have installed the crookedest dictator on the planet as their preferred leader. Even with all this effort, at best the US has managed a stalemate. When US and NATO leave, Americans claim that Karzai will prevail. That makes no sense. How could the war go better for Karzai without help that with it? He will be hang from his thumbs or flee to hide in luxury on his drug money. The Taliban ground down the Russians and they have ground down the USA. The Taliban are fighting for their country. Americans can’t even tell you why they are fighting. The American troops have no motivation but the pleasure of fighting. They have no delusions left their war has something to do with defending the USA.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Afghan Revenge

Somebody could write a short story about a pair of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan who burst in on an Afghan family to bully them, forcing their daughter to dance forcing the mother to bring food. The mother brings tea and all drink. Then the old mother shrieks with glee and drops dead. She has poisoned the tea with some high tech poison she stole from the Americans. The daughter explains why and how her mother plotted revenge on these two soldiers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Aiding the Terrorists

What does a terrorist organisation need? recruits and money. The illegal invasion of Afghanistan is helping Al Qaeda with both. The worse the US behaves with torture, banned weapons, killing civilians… the more recruits and money pour into Al Qaeda from around the world from people horrified at American behaviour. It is thus illogical to think the situation can be improved with still more torture, banned weapons and killing civilians. If nine years of it did not work, why would even more help? It is literal insanity to try the same brutality over and over expecting a different result. Ask the Russians. They occupied Afghanistan for a decade too, before they gave up and went home.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Airline Terrorists

I can’t for the life of me understand a terrorist who blows up an airliner. It filled with people from all over the world of all ages. About the only thing the passengers have in common is the money to buy a ticket or a job that buys them one. What possible grudge could you have against that random assortment of people?

I can understand blowing up a military facility of soldiers who had bombed your village. I can understand assassinating suspected war criminals. I can understand blowing up some poison gas factory. I can understand blowing up a power plant or bridge of strategic significance. I can even understand an insane plot to blow up a nuclear sub.

But killing random strangers is just plain nuts.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Airports

The first time you go to one of the larger airports in the USA such as Jackson Atlanta, O’Hare, LAX, Dallas/Fort Worth or Denver it just blows you away. There are so many planes, so many maintenance people, so many ticket people, baggage handlers, so many passengers, all the air traffic people, great tanks full of fuel… It takes an hour just to walk to your next flight. Yet for the aerospace industry, commercial aircraft are just a sideline compared with the amount they make on military aircraft, even when nobody is attacking. Somewhere else, where you are not normally invited, there is an even bigger military aviation operation. It has bases spanning the globe.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Al Franken Inconsistency

There is something a bit nuts about people like Al Franken who support the USO (United Service Organisations) but claim to oppose the Afghan and Iraq wars. By making life in the field more pleasant for soldiers, fewer will go home and stay there, thus prolonging the wars. You can’t have a war without soldiers willing to fight it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Al Qaeda Home

Al Qaeda has a presence in dozens of countries. They move from country to country. Where is the safest place for us for them to base? — as far away as possible, say on the other side of the earth in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

All Space Belongs to Us

With the National Space Policy of 2006-08-31 the U.S.A. asserts sovereignty over all of space, in that the Americans assert a right to deny access to space to anyone hostile to U.S.A. To enforce this policy, the U.S.A. has developed and tested technology to shoot down other nations’ satellites and spacecraft. The Chinese responded by developing their own anti-satellite technology.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

America = Nazi

The German people looked the other way when their country illegally invaded country after country. They rolled over for the Nazis. This is to their eternal shame. Even a higher proportion of Americans did exactly the same thing when the their country illegally invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. They imagined that disapproving was sufficient. They behaved no better than the Germans. The Germans had more excuse. No American would have been shot for resisting.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

America = Rome

The ancient Romans used to enjoy watching people being eaten by wild beasts. Modern Americans use napalm and white phosphorus to torture and kill in one operation. The idea is to terrorise their victims into submission after watching their children die hideous deaths. But the American soldiers found this treatment too rich for their stomachs. To protect themselves, they invented unmanned drones like the Predator aircraft and the Northrop Grumman Firescout, so they could murder and torture sitting on a couch slurping cokes and gorging on pizzas with no more emotional involvement than they would have dispatching zombies in a video game. Americans are so full of themselves they cannot see how they have become just more decadent than Nazis. The primary function of these unmanned craft is to suppress compassion, regret and restraint.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

America = Rome

The citizens of ancient Rome did little work. They sponged off their colonies/provinces, taking the tribute as their natural due as Roman citizens. They maintained this privilege with an unusually brutal and efficient army. Americans are similar.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

America = Russia

It is rather hypocritical Obama berating Putin for committing a minor version of the same war crimes America committed with the illegal invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. At least Russia has not yet tortured anyone or used any banned weapons or carpet bombed civilians.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

America the Bully

Americans typically wage war by picking on a resource-rich country less than 1/10 its size and attacking illegally without provocation. They primarily drop noxious things from high altitude on the civilian populations and civilian targets such as hospitals, mosques and electric power stations, objects including bombs, banned weapons such as DU (Depleted Uranium), white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). The American rely on technology including armoured vehicles and Predator drones so rarely risk face-to-face combat. American spend without limit on a ceaseless torrent of the most advanced weapons, deluding themselves they need to do this to defend their homeland. Yet they see themselves as heroes in these battles and wonder why they are tarred with epithets such as The Great Satan and why even former allies look on in horror. They foolishly wonder why the civilian populations don’t greet them with garlands. The answer should be obvious. What if an alien super power ten times the size of the USA similarly attacked the USA? How would Americans react?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

America Created The Iran Problem

I am frustrated with Americans wringing their hands over Iran developing nukes when they are the ones who created the problem. What do I mean by that?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

America Cursed

America is cursed forever. It is already well along its decline into insignificance. It brought this on itself with barbaric, sadistic and totally unwarranted cruelty to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost no American made even a peep to object. Americans were even more compliant with evil than the citizens of Germany were under the Nazis. The entire population of America were tested and found wanting.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

America Fears Invasion, Get Serious!

Americans tell me they are killing people in Iraq because if they don’t kill them there, they will have to fight them back in America. America attacked Iraq in the Gulf war, in the sanction bombings and in the Iraq war. Never in all that time did Iraqis attack American civilians, just the soldiers illegally invading their country. The Americans killed about 3 million Iraqis. Thus the Iraqis have plenty of justification for levelling the USA. Americans must take responsibility for creating that revenge motive through their unconscionable treatment of the Iraqis, including torture, rape, murder and deaths too hideous to describe. Americans attacked first, unprovoked and illegally. Even Bush said Iraq had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. Americans use this phony fear excuse to cover for the real motive for the war, that everyone but the Americans acknowledges, theft of the Iraqi oil reserves. The American excuse is as preposterous as a mugger who stole money then beat his unarmed victims to a pulp killing them, then claiming self-defence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Black Hole

Americans have no more conscience than the ancient Romans. Like a black hole, America sucks the entire earth dry of natural resources, energy and food. The #1 health problem is gluttony. They send out their legions across the earth seeking more to consume (Afghanistan for minerals and Iraq for oil) and lie that they do it for altruistic motives. Unaware as piglets sucking at a sow, they offer no protest. There has not been a peep of resistance since the Viet Nam war, and even that was motivated by a selfish (though eminently sensible) desire to avoid the draft.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Blindness to Their Own Evil

Convincing Americans that they are committing crimes with their aggressive (first strike) wars against Afghanistan and Iraq is just as difficult as it was convincing Germans their invasion of Poland was improper. Americans believe and Germans believed they were the master race. By definition, anything they do is virtuous. It is inconceivable to them that they could commit crimes. The herd mentality holds these delusions in place like cement.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Cheek

Americans have incredible cheek to complain about 2001-09-11 that killed 3500 people when they attacked Iraq unprovoked, on false pretences, stole all their oil resources and killed millions. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan had any part in 2001-09-11. Even Bush said it was Saudis. Yet Americans rained terror on them that made 2001-09-11 look like a picnic.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Civilians Killed

America has been butchering civilians in Iraq for 14 years and 4 months, claiming they are doing it to protect their freedoms. However, the Iraqis have killed exactly 0 American civilians in all that time. The only freedoms Americans have lost were those squelched by Cheney-Bush. The war is clearly a gigantic lie to cover up the cynical plundering of Iraq’s oil wealth.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Cowards

It is amazing how many Americans admit to being so cowardly they want all Afghan and Iraqi children killed so they won’t grow up and take revenge for what America did to their parents. At least they are honest enough to admit America has given the kids cause.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Death Superstitions

Americans have a superstition, backed by law, that the bodies of Americans killed in war or their coffins must not be photographed. Oddly, the superstition does not apply to those they have killed. I see this law as a way to deceive the American people about the human costs of illegal wars. As a Canadian, the law does not apply to me. I feel a duty to punch Americans in the gut with such photos to persuade them to stop treating war as a football game.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Definition of Non-Proliferation

Americans claim they are dedicated to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. What they mean is they want a world where no one has nukes but them. This is not going to fly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Denial

Almost every American old enough watched the US Air force pummel the residential sections of Baghdad to rubble live on CNN (Cable News Network) on the opening day of the Iraq war 2003-03-20. Yet most Americans will claim either the USA almost never kills children or never does so intentionally. Who did they imagine was living in those apartment buildings? The denial is revolting. It reaches Nazi proportions. The Nazis have far more excuse. Hitler at least tried to hide his atrocities.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Denial

The denial of Americans is so powerful, that they will assert American soldiers have ever killed any children in Afghanistan or Iraq based on a single propaganda photo of a soldier handing out candy or holding a child. They ignore the fact they funded $1 trillion in aircraft, bombs, white phosphorus, napalm, tanks, rifles… to pound these countries to rubble. They ignore the photos of bombed homes or dead children. They will even ignore the televised deliberate killing of children during the killing of al-Zarqawi on the bombing of the residential sections of Baghdad broadcast live on the opening day of the war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Double Standard

Americans have no shame about the atrocious way their country treated the citizen of Iran, Cuba, Viet Nam, Chile, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Haiti, Venezuela, Iraq, Mexico… because they have one set of ethics about how they should treat Americans and another how they should treat non-Americans. How is that different from South Africa’s old apartheid system, India’s cast system or Europe’s class system?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Empire

The USA has 800 military bases scattered all over the world. This dwarfs ancient Rome’s empire. These are very expensive. But what purpose do they serve? Does the USA really intend to maintain a world empire with a stranglehold on every country?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Exaggeration

American like to say that world history changed forever on 2001-09-11. This is a bit of exaggeration from drama queens. Two buildings were destroyed by terrorists. In contrast, buzz bombs leveled most of London in WWII. Americans leveled two entire cities with nukes in WWII. American bombers razed two entire contrives Afghanistan and Iraq. In comparison, 9-11 is pretty small potatoes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Freedoms, My Ass

Americans tell me they are killing kids and torturing teenagers in Afghanistan and Iraq to protect American freedom. That is blithering nonsense. Why do I think so?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Gall

Americans have incredible gall to term their victims in Afghanistan and Iraq terrorists A terrorist is someone who kills civilians an attempt to bully them into changing their political opinions. The Americans killed about 200 times as many civilians. Further, America illegally invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, not the reverse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Hypocrisy

The hypocrisy of America never ceases to amaze me. At the end of WWII, at Nuremberg, they made up new laws and applied them retroactively to hang the Germans. Then they broke those same laws repeatedly themselves, yet never permitted any American citizen ever to be tried.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Hypocrisy

The hypocrisy of Americans never ceases to amaze me. They give medals to Americans who go on suicide missions, but spit on anyone who resists American invasion the same way.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Hypocrisy

It is a triumph of propaganda and the power of language that most citizens of the USA have no problem when a large powerful group, such as themselves, attacks and kills the civilians of some weaker group, but scream terrorist when the weaker group retaliates by attacking and killing soldiers or civilians of the powerful group. Surely killing civilians is terrorism no matter who does it and killing combatants is war no matter who does it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Justice

America has a two tier military justice system, similar to the one they had in the days of segregation. It works like this:
If an American attacks another American unprovoked, that is a felony.
If an American injures an American attacker in the process of defending himself, that is not a felony.
However, if an American attacks an Afghan or Iraqi unprovoked, that is liberation a favour done for the Afghan/Iraqi, certainly not a felony, even though international law dating from the days of the Nuremberg Trials says it is.
If an Afghan or Iraqi harms an American in the process of defending himself, that is a felony. It also labels the offender a terrorist even if they never harmed any civilians.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Lies

I get so angry with Americans and their bigoted nonsense about Muslims, their bogus quotations from the Qur’an, accusing Muslims of having an irrational hatred for the USA. They forget America illegally attacked Afghanistan and Iraq without provocation and killed millions and stole their oil and lithium, not the reverse. They remind me of Nazis with their nutty vilification of the Jews, used to justify stealing their wealth and murdering them. A handful of people pulled off 2001-09-11, most likely a false flag operation and Americans have used that to justify taking out revenge on 1/6 of the planet, over and over and over, on people who had absolutely nothing to do with 2001-09-11.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Mass Murderers

  1. In the sanction bombings between the Gulf war and the Iraq war, the USA killed 1.5 million Iraqis, mostly children. Thumbing their noses at the Geneva conventions, they destroyed water treatment, sewage and electric plants and hospitals. The Iraqis were forced to drink sewage and they died of cholera.
  2. In the first winter of the Afghan war, the USA starved to death 1 million Afghans, mostly children by blockading all food and fuel imports into the country in an extremely bitter winter.
  3. In the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the USA killed 246,000 Japanese civilians.
  4. The 2004 tsunami killed 230,000 people.
  5. In the blitz bombings of WWII, Nazis killed 40,000 British civilians.
  6. The Tōhoku tsunami killed 14,416 people with 11,889 people still missing, presumably dead.
  7. In the 2001-09-11 attacks, 3,500 Americans were killed. President Bush said Saudi suicide terrorists did it. Most Americans erroneously believe 2001-09-11 was the largest distaste in recorded history. They believe it justifies ignoring the constitution and international law to extract revenge. They also believe it justifies attacking nations that had nothing to do with 2001-09-11, if they have resources American wants. Since it was badly hurt, America feels it has a right to hurt others a hundredfold, even if they had nothing to do with 2001-09-11.
  8. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it killed 2,395 Americans.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Military Spending

America spends almost as much on its military as the rest of the world put together. It spends just as much when it not at war as when it is. Why? The general population are paranoid, but that is because they have been manipulated. Part of the reason is simply bureaucratic bloat. Everything is secret so nothing can be questioned. The oversight of Pentagon spending is so lax a trillion dollars went missing presumably embezzled in the greatest heist of all time. It was reported only on the back pages of the New York Times. But the real reason is corruption. Consider that Cheney was accepting residuals from Halliburton, even while he was in office. George H. W. Bush was a major owner of the major defence contractor the Carlyle Group during the time his son was president. These companies were awarded no-bid contracts. They were able to charge ten times the going rate for goods and services. Other contractors gave contributions to senators and congressmen in return for votes for weapons are not needed, or too keep obsolete weapons systems funded. I find it peculiar that the American in the street imagines every penny of that expenditure is absolutely necessary for his survival. The average citizen is far more likely to die as a result of crumbling infrastructure, poisoned water supply, leaking sewage treatment, understaffed hospitals, contaminated food, dangerous materials recycling… than he would by a foreign invasion. Yet he won’t spend a dime protecting himself from domestic dangers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Misuse of the Term Terrorist

Americans use the word terrorist in a unique way. When Afghans kill invading US soldiers, it is called terrorism. However, when US soldiers kill men, women and child Afghan civilians it is not. This is the exact opposite of the usual meaning.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Nazis

Americans are doing the exact same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq, naming waging aggressive (first strike) war that they hanged the Nazis for at the end of WWII.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Nuclear Policy

American military policy is to use nuclear weapons, first strike, against non-nuclear nations.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Orcs

When the Americans invaded Iraq, they ran their tanks over a mosaic created in the time of Alexander the Great, ruining it. They burned museums. They looted artifacts. This reminds me of the French soldiers who used Leonardo da Vinci’s giant horse statue for target practice.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Paranoia

Even though the USA has not been defeated since the war of 1812, even though they spend more on the their military than the rest of the world combined, even though they have military bases all over the world, Americans still harbour a paranoid fear of tiny countries with microscopic militaries, e.g. Cuba, Nicaragua, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq…

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Plutocracy

America is on track for a new cold war with the rest of the planet with other countries complaining that America is aiding and abetting criminal activity by corporations. Americans have already embraced plutonics in favour of democracy with the Supreme Court decision permitting corporations to legally bribe politicians in unlimited amounts.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Scum Soldiers

Americans chastise me for holding US soldiers in such low esteem. It is so simple. They volunteered to kill children who live in countries that the USA attacked illegally and unprovoked who were absolutely no threat to the USA. There is no conceivable reputable motive for doing that. About 45% of their casualties are children. There is no reputable motive for killing any of their other victims either. What I find amazing is that the majority of Americans are in deniable of these obvious facts. They justify the carnage as revenge for 2001-09-11 even when they know Afghanistan and Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 2001-09-11. That is crazy talk.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Scum, American Soldier

He gave his life to defend his country. What utter BS! First he was in an aggressive war against a country 1/10 the size of his own. There was no defence involved! He was helping steal resources. He was getting his personal jollies hurting people. Second, he lost his life, involuntarily. He did not give it. He was not a suicide bomber.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Self Deception

Americans have made such a habit of self deception that nearly all of them believe it is a noble enterprise to go on a safari to the other side of the world to hunt children, so long as they do it under the auspices of the US military.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Shame

Hitler invaded Poland, France… unprovoked. George W. Bush invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq unprovoked. What about 2001-09-11? Bush himself told us the World Trade terrorists were Saudis — not an Afghan or Iraqi in the lot. Hitler refrained from using poison gas, having experienced it first hand in. Don’t. Bush used a variety of banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). Hitler set up puppet provisional governments in his conquered territories and declared those who opposed them terrorists. Bush set up corrupt drug and war lords as his puppet dictators in both Afghanistan and Iraq and declared those who opposed them terrorists. The Nazis starved and worked their own Jewish citizens to death. The American routinely tortured their P.O.W.s. Germans built hidden rooms in their houses to shelter Jews. American teabaggers waved guns at rallies to intimidate immigrants. The Nazis were hanged using newly created laws against war crimes. Bush, Cheney and Obama have not even been charged with the capital war crimes that they are brazenly guilty of, namely aiding and abetting an aggressive war, not to mention scores of violations of the Geneva Conventions. Hitler lost his war. Bush/Obama could not possibly lose theirs (in the sense of America being invaded) with its unlimited budget and population 20 times that of the countries it attacked. Oddly, Americans consider Hitler unspeakably evil and the American presidents 100% blameless even though in many respects the American crimes are more serious. Like a fungus, patriotism rots and deforms the mind

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Terrorists

If a group of American soldiers plan an attack on a village, perhaps with a bombing mission or a drone attack, or a mortar attack and kill 200 civilians as a result, how is that any different from a terrorist in the USA planting a bomb that kills 200 civilians? Americans see the first as honourable and the second as almost the greatest crime imaginable. The only difference I can see is, in the first case, the Americans are the culprits and the second, Americans are the victims.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Terrorists

When the USA was defending itself against Japan, it killed Japanese civilians by the millions. They never called themselves terrorists, yet when Muslims do the exact same thing on a much smaller scale to defend their homelands, the Americans invariably call them terrorists.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Traitors

America tortures prisoners, without trial, and even without charge. As surely everyone knows, this is unconstitutional. But nearly all Americans pretend not to notice. This includes people who protest for preservation of second amendment rights. This includes people to enlist for military service which might include torturing such prisoners. These people remind me of the Germans who were so blasé about the death camps. The Germans had a bigger excuse. Those camps were secret. These Americans who refuse to defend the constitution are traitors. They don’t deserve to call themselves American.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Treaty Breakers

Americans believe, like Hitler, they may invade whomever they want, even though they have signed a treaty agreeing not to invade unless attacked. They justified attacking Afghanistan on the grounds bin Laden might have been hiding there and kept up the attack even after they were quite sure he was no longer there. Oddly they did not similarly feel compelled to attack Pakistan when they located bin Laden living there. Why? Pakistan has nukes. Pakistan does not have a pipeline route. Pakistan does not have a $1 trillion a year heroin trade.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Treaty Breakers

Americans believe, they may invade whomever they want, even though they have signed a treaty that trumps the constitution agreeing not to invade unless attacked. You might say then that Americans are a nation of outlaws.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Values

Americans are extremely proud of their family values:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Villains

Just like the Germans in WWII, the Americans don’t realise they are the villains in the Afghan and Iraq wars.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Vincibility

Young American males like to argue that the USA is the world’s only superpower, therefore they can do anything they like. No one can stop them. Might makes right.

I counter, the USA spends more on the military than the rest of the world put together, but it is far from invincible. Two tiny countries, Afghanistan and Iraq fought it to a stalemate. Iran, North Korea and Venezuela stick out their tongues in ridicule. China produces far more energy than the USA. China manufactures far more than the USA. The EU has a larger population and greater economic activity.

The USA is up to its neck in debt to the rest of the world. It is racing toward bankruptcy, trying to finance its energy-guzzling lifestyle by borrowing money. They are stuck in an economic slump, pinned there by corrupt politicians and corrupt corporations. As America gets weaker and weaker relative to its rivals, Americans are going to wish they had not behaved like such blustering bullies, thieving natural resources. The rest of the world will not forget or forgive the USA. On top of that the USA is falling back into medieval superstition. A majority now reject the science upon which her wealth and dominance was based.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American vs British TV Coverage

It is interesting to compare American and British TV coverage of a bombing in Iraq. From the American report you would get the impression the bombing was a random killing of ordinary civilians. From the British report, you see it was an attack on the buildings and employees of the puppet collaborator government. Americans like to project the notion their foes are irrational. It makes genocide seem more like pest control.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American vs Nazi

Who is worse, the Nazis or the 21st century Americans.
Issue Nazis Americans
Governance run by a dictator Run by elected representatives including president. The constitution is frequently ignored.
Illegal first strike wars Attacked most of Europe and the USSR. Attacked Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
Deaths Killed 6 million Jews in concentration camps, plus the military deaths plus the civilian deaths in bombings. Killed 3 million Muslims mostly in bombing and bioterror.
Geneva Conventions? Largely conformed. Considered them quaint.
torture of POW (Prisoner Of War) s? rare routine
National cult of superiority?
Targeted civilians?
Used land mines?
Used banned chemical weapons?
Pretended provisional governments were democratic?
Imposed religious beliefs on the conquered?
Illegally targeted sanitation and
water treatment plants to cause cholera epidemics?
Pretended their aggressive wars were for self-defence?
Political assassinations?
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American War Crimes

I have the utmost contempt for Americans who justify the actions of the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq claiming the soldiers are torturing, violating the Geneva convention, killing civilians, supporting the drug and war lords and generally behaving like Nazis, motivated by a desperate self-defence. They pretend to forget the USA started both wars, attacking both Afghanistan and Iraq unprovoked and under false pretences to boot. Recall how Bush justified the attack on Iraq with fabricated WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) evidence. Americans are in Iraq because Americans desperately need oil, not because Iraq would or could invade the USA. This is claim is as ridiculous as mugging old ladies in self-defence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

American Wrongdoing

America does some pretty dastardly things:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans Are Attached to War Crimes as Strongly as Nazis

I would have thought it would be much easier to talk Americans out of committing war crimes and atrocities than Nazis, since their information sources are much less tightly controlled, but they have proved equally resistant. Both are utterly convinced of their virtue. No evidence to the contrary has any effect. It is like religious mania. If Americans do it, by definition it must be good, even torture, even child rape, even child dismemberment.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans are Subject To International Law

Over and over I remind Americans they are not immune to international law even if the USA currently refuses to recognise the authority of the world court. I remind that aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war such as Afghanistan or Iraq is a capital war crime. That was the only charge used to hang all the Nazis at the end of WWII at Nuremberg. Americans typically react with fury, as if I had taken the law into my own hands and had executed these war criminals myself. If they are tried, imprisoned or executed, I won’t be the one doing it. I am giving them information to help them stay out of hot water. They are just angry they can’t legally kill whomever they please with immunity and I am an easy target to take their frustration out on. Elephants get mean when they are blocked from mating. Americans get nasty when anything interferes with them killing kids.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans Behaving Badly

There is a documentary series on the history channel called Ancients Behaving Badly. It documents the atrocities of people like Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great, Caligula etc. I could imagine some future version of this show featuring the USA in the early part of the 21st century. The thing that would amaze viewers is that Americans of the time did not see themselves as cruel at all. Even though they had full access to the facts, the extreme nationalism of the time made Americans interpret atrocity as heroism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans Have No Right To Complain

Americans have no right to complain the Pakistanis did not find bin Laden for them. After all, the Americans had high resolution satellite imagery and surveillance drone photos the Pakistanis did not have.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans as Mad Bronson

Imagine one of those Charles Bronson revenge flics where the plot goes like this: Somebody kills Bronson’s wife. He can’t find the guy who did it, but he is pretty sure the guy was a Lutheran. He then sets outs to kill 100 Lutherans a day for at least 15 years. He starts out just mowing down entire congregations with a machine gun, but then he shifts to torturing them to death en masse in his secret dungeon and using terror weapons banned even in warfare including radioactive and biological weapons, attempting to violate every principle in the Geneva Conventions. Oddly, the news media fall in love with his romantic quest and call him a hero fighting for justice. Bronson is a Vulcan compared with the over-the-top, insane revenge response to 2001-09-11 that Americans are indulging in.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans Refrain From Eating Infants

To understand the American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, view Richard Attenborough’s Planet Earth the episode where the males in one troop of chimpanzees attack the females and infants of a h neighbouring tribe. The big difference is the Americans don’t eat the infants they kill.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans Sound Like Nazis

If you listen to interviews of Germans to lived through WWII, you will discover they thought they were defending their homeland. Americans believe similar nonsense about their aggressive wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans Testing Psycho Weapon on Themselves

Imagine a new class of weapon that makes your enemies go nuts and start killing each other. It looks as though the Americans have developed such a weapon and are testing it on themselves.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans vs Nazis

Americans are shocked when I compare their unprovoked invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq with Hitler’s invasion of Poland, even though by some measures, Americans behaved even worse:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans vs Nazis

It is a bit of a joke to compare someone to the Nazis simply because they share one attribute in common e.g. massive lying, or wearing brown shirts, however, in a number of way the Americans have behaved even worse than Nazis in their Afghanistan and Iraq wars:

The two are similar in that they:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans vs Nazis

Which country is more admirable, A or B? Country A invested heavily in military technology, far in excess of other countries. Country A held its citizens without trial and tortured them to death. Country A attacked other countries unprovoked to take control of their natural resources. Country A when occupying a country, used group punishment and terror to ensure compliance. Country A was a master of propaganda and disinformation and considered this a primary tool of warfare. Country A believed themselves vastly superior to those they conquered and imposed their religion and culture on them. Country B tortured its own citizens on a much smaller scale, though did all those things too and in addition thumbed its nose at the world court, killed primarily civilians and children in its wars, used banned weapons and routinely tortured all POWs (Prisoner Of Wars). If you picked A, you picked Nazi Germany. If you picked B, you picked the USA.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

America’s Big Lie

Everyone on American TV, including newscasters, commentators and comedians conspires in a giant Nazi-like lie, a lie like the one used to deny the holocaust, to both deny that America did anything illegal in attacking Afghanistan and Iraq and to deny that the USA attacked both these nations without provocation. Ordinary American citizens are complicit by, to a man, parroting the lie even though they nearly all saw America attack Iraq on CNN with unprovoked bombing of the residential sections of Baghdad on the first day of the war. They sat around their TV sets, cheering, much as Nazis cheered the invasion of Poland, in a burst of misplaced team spirit.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ancient Chemical Warfare

The Dick Cheney of the ancient world was Solon, leader of Athens. He killed everyone in the city of Kira by poisoning their water supply with hellebore, a plant with poisonous alkaloids in its roots.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Andy’s Submarines

I once worked with a mild mannered guy named Andy on a telecommunications controller that evolved from a Univac 1616 military mini used to control nuclear submarines. To my astonishment Andy expressed a desire to write software for nuclear submarines. To him, they were just giant toys. It did not dawn on him in the least that the function of these submarines was to wipe out life on earth.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Angel Us

It is amazing how many people who, with a straight face, tell you their country bombs and invades other for their own good. Even more will tell you that soldiers and weapons have a primary function of ensuring a peaceful world. This so naïve.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Animal Fights

Most male animals fight. It is just they avoid auxiliary weapons and killing the young and females. Further, they rarely fight to the death, just long enough to determine who is the stronger.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Another View Of Pearl Harbour

In WWII, Pearl Harbour was not quite a Roosevelt claimed. The US had imposed an embargo of oil and machinery on Japan. The attacks were no surprise. The military might of the USA was just scratched by Pearl Harbour. America sacrificed 100,000 American lives in response to the 2,500 lost at Pearl Harbour. The incendiary and nuclear strikes on Japanese civilians are among history’s biggest war crimes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Anti-American

People often accuse me of being anti-American. It is true I believe the Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars are inexcusable and I detest with extreme passion anyone who supports them. Unfortunately, even the most progressive Americans still blindly support the troops even when they commit atrocities. I also hold America in contempt for allowing the health care industry to corrupt its government and to refuse health care to so many citizens. I lived in San Francisco for 6 months in 1985. Almost none of my friends could afford health care, even though all were employed. It horrified me that they went without even the most basic health care. However, there are some Americans I admire. Ones you may have heard of include:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Anti-Rape Device

The only weapon I could think of that would discourage war would be a device a woman could use to quickly remove the penis and testicles of her rapist, damaging the organs so they could not be reattached. Surely the American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan could have no objection to their widespread distribution.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Antisemitism

In 1948 anti-Semitism was rampant all over the globe, not just in Nazi Germany. Religious fanatic Jews who called themselves Zionists yearned for their own country, a theocracy, where they could feel safe. They decided to invade Palestine, a country prominent in Jewish history millennia ago. None of these people’s ancestors had ever lived there, but Zionists convinced themselves they had holy title to the entire country and the Palestinians were squatting on it. Major powers like the USA and Britain egged the Zionists on, because they wanted a way to get rid of their Jewish citizens. The Zionists won their war and effectively enslaved the Palestinians and set up an apartheid state. Over the years, Israel spend lavishly buying and threatening the politicians of the world so that most people on earth saw the Jews as the persecuted party. The Palestinians and their Arab neighbours wanted to oust the Zionist invaders entirely, but did not have the military might to do it. So they decided try for a compromise, where the Palestinians would be given back a small piece of their original land to run as their own country. Israel is run by extreme right wing politicians who reject the partition and promote genocide of the Palestinians as the only viable long-term solution. What bothers me most is the Jews who live in Israel are convinced they did absolutely nothing at all to harm the Palestinians. Jews are 100% blameless. They believe the Palestinians are to a man insane and attack Jews for utterly no reason. Such is the power of state propaganda.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Apologising for Sadism

Apologists for military sadists excuse them on the grounds they naïvely believe they are serving their country by protecting it from invasion. Yet when the troops get to Afghanistan or Iraq, surely it must be immediately obvious that America is the aggressor and that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq has or ever had the means to attack the USA. Yet they re-enlist anyway. They do it because they so enjoy raping, torturing and killing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Apologists for Torture

Apologists for torture argue the there should be no investigations and no prosecutions because the criminals to performed the torture felt justified in breaking the law. We should let bygones be bygones, look forward, and focus on the present. Their argument applies equally well to disbanding the entire criminal justice system. We prosecute, not just to punish past crimes, but to deter future crimes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Apology to Omar

We (the US and Canada) ignored every relevant law on the book in dealing with Omar Khadr. We wanted him punished, primarily for being Muslim, the law be damned. Americans convicted him of terrorism (which is absurd since he did not even allegedly hurt any civilians or try to change their political views by force, the definition of terrorism.) I can understand this in the blind panic after 9/11, but not it the sober light of the Canadian supreme court more than a decade later.

The way I see it, he did nothing wrong, morally or legally. The USA invaded Afghanistan illegally (by aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war). That made the invaders guilty of a capital (hanging offence) war crime. Killing invaders in self-defence is a duty in the moral code subscribed to by the majority of Canadians. What is even crazier is the embarrassing lack of evidence that child soldier Khadr ever killed anyone. The damning evidence is merely a confession extracted under extreme duress at the notorious Guantánamo prison.

We are going to owe Khadr a massive amount of compensation when the dust finally settles.

Individual Canadians are free to apologise now on behalf of our country no matter what Harper (or even the supreme court) thinks.

It is not personal. Canadian and American politicians merely need a poster boy to prove they are good terrorist fighters. The American ones further needed to prove they were good Muslims-hating Christians. By ignoring the rule of law, politicians, in general, have behaved shamefully. In contrast, from what I read, Omar’s behaviour while incarcerated was beyond reproach.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Appeal of Hockey

Hockey teaches the values of violence. It is popular because it appeals to audience sadism. Nobody in the hockey business gives a fig about the corrupting affect on those it touches.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Approval ≠ Legality

Just because the US and Canadian governments and most of their citizens refuse to acknowledge that the Afghan and Iraq wars are illegal and aggressive (first strike), does not make them legal, any more that Nazis approving of their own actions made them legal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Arms Caches

An astounding number of Americans say they demand the right to stockpile weapons for a coming armed insurrection. Some thoughts:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Arms Dealers to the World

Americans sells more arms to the world than any other country — ten times more than second place Russia. So Americans are kidding themselves when they imagine they are peacemakers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Arms Race

Historically, all arms races ended in war or bankruptcy of one or both players. One problem with a nuclear arms race is it forces the losing player to skimp on safeguards in order to afford to keep up.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Arms Race

You can see a pattern stretching back to antiquity. Every decade, military men invent ever more lethal, terrifying and cruel weapons. Even when the weapons are considered unspeakably horrible, they eventually end up being used. Massive military budgets and technology have accelerated this evolution, through war, peace, boom and bust. What is the end point of this progression? the extinction of man. We are utterly nuts to march toward a goal nobody, not even war-profiteering Republicans, wants.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Army Chaplains

The function of an army chaplain is to salve the conscience of soldier who is having second thoughts about torturing, killing civilians or raping children. His job is to convince the soldier by cajoling and lies that he is doing the right thing and should continue. This way the soldier will continue his war crimes. A chaplain is thus lower than a child prostitute pimp.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Assassination with Drones

America is using assassination with predator drones rather too casually as its main instrument of foreign policy. They have forgotten their own history of what happens when someone is assassinated — Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King. Overnight, the victim turns into a saint and everything they ever said holy writ. Prior to his assassination, Kennedy was a hot-heated, womanising twit who just about started a nuclear war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Asshole JFK (John Fitzgerald Kennedy)

I was furious with JFK in the Cuba missile crisis of 1962-10-14. The Russians had moved nuclear missiles into Cuba pointing at the USA. The USA had previously moved nuclear missiles into Turkey pointing at the USSR. JFK threatened nuclear war if the Khrushchev did not remove the missiles. Kennedy was not prepared to concede anything in return. I was only 14 years and 8 months at the time, but to me, the solution was obvious. Each country should remove its missiles. Everyone would save face. Everyone would be safer. War would be averted. Thankfully Khrushchev backed down. The public did not find out until 2012 that Kennedy did indeed agree to remove the missiles from Turkey, but only on the condition the Soviets keep it secret. If they leaked this, the missiles would stay. Kennedy was a testosterone-crazed asshole. He risked destroying planet earth so he could play John Wayne. He has been treated as a saint. He was an irresponsible lunatic. But thankfully, he was not a total idiot.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Astonishment at Revenge

It is so odd that Americans feel affronted and astonished when Muslims make even token attacks against them. Why would Americans expect Muslims to meekly accept a decade of pounding and the routine torture of POWs and the butchery and of millions of their civilians? An attack almost always invites a counter attack. Americans are so conceited and so clueless that they imagine the terrorist attacks are just madness, without rational motive. They conveniently forget all their trespasses against the Muslims of the Middle East, including two illegal, first-strike, unprovoked wars.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Attacker Advantages

A flaw in the universe is that attackers have certain advantages:

Thankfully, satellite and drone surveillance is diminishing that advantage.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Attacking A Cat

Consider what is happening when you corner a domestic cat. It hisses and spits at you. What is it thinking?

Obviously, it is terrified of you, especially if you are carrying a club and threaten to pound the cat to pulp. It is merely trying to scare you off from attacking it. I contend the Iranians are very much like that cat:

If you were in Iran’s position, what would you do to protect yourself? Only nukes seem to deter the USA. It leaves North Korea and China alone. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan had nukes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Attacking Iran

Israel wants to attack Iran. Life is not exciting enough? Now, they have to go pick fights with countries much bigger than they are. Attacking Iran is not like bullying a little unarmed country like Lebanon or Gaza. Iran has rockets, planes, missiles, bombs and maybe even nukes. Iran has friends — Russia and China. Its sunburn missiles can sink a destroyer with one shot. It can block the Straits of Hormuz thus strangling most of the world’s oil supply. Obama does not need yet another war, especially one that jacks up gas prices, in the middle of his re-election campaign. He will cancel Israel’s $4 billion a year allowance if they pull this meshugge stunt.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Attacking ISIS

The USA is relying on occupied Iraq to fight ISIS for them. This makes about as much sense as Hitler relying on occupied France to invade Britain for him. You can’t expect your enemies to fight on your behalf.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Attacking Pakistan

What would have happened if Pakistan had noticed the US Strike force going after bin Laden. They may have presumed it was the USA or India attacking them and in a fit of pique launched a nuclear counter attack. Obama made a huge gamble because the payoff was his reelection.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Attacking Syria

In deciding whether to attack Syria, there are two main issues:

  1. Just how wicked is ISIS? Just how big a threat are they to whom? They are obviously a serious threat to the middle east, but not to Canada or the USA.
  2. Is what Canada is planning to do, (namely bomb random civilians) going to do more good than harm? Will it have any significant effect deterring ISIS? Is there something else Canada could do that would work much better?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has focused only on the first issue and totally ignored the second. For pity sake, killing ISIS’s victims just helps ISIS! Military people suffer from the delusion that killing random people is the universal fix for any problem. Consider how many times random bombing has been tried, only to make the situation worse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Attacking Those Who Don’t Trust Bush

It is amusing to watch how supporters of the Bush view of what happened on 2001-09-11 have changed their attacks over time on those who do not trust their story:

You can see most of these attacks in the History Channel documentary 102 Minutes that Changed America / Witness to 2001-09-11 that mocks the conspiracy theorists.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Autoattack Weapon

Imagine a weapon that made its victim mistake his own body as something foreign attacking him. He would scream in terror at his legs, bite off his hands, shoot off his foot and crush his own testicles… This is a metaphor for the fracturing and paranoia going on America today.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Axis of Evil

On 2002-01-29, in his SOTU axis of evil speech, transcript George W. Bush announced America’s intention to destroy the axis of evil, namely Iraq, North Korea and Iran. Iran had no chance against America with the largest and best equipped military on the planet. What were they to do? The only thing that could conceivably hold off the USA is a nuclear deterrent. Nuclear missiles worked for North Korea. Iran is trying them too, but since it can’t possibly deliver a missile to the continental USA, it has to bluff a nuclear strike capability against America’s proxy in the region, Israel, instead and hope the USA cares enough about Israel to call off the attack on Iran. Iran further made it clear they could easily block the Strait of Hormuz and hence freeze 40% of the planet’s oil shipments which would cripple the USA. To me, all this was inevitable once Bush announced his attack plans. Oddly, for most Americans, Iran’s behaviour seems baffling and irrational. Americans refuse to take any responsibility for helping create this messy and dangerous situation. You can’t announce your plans to murder someone and expect them to take it lying down.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Baby Hunting

You might wonder what sort of sicko would travel half way round the earth to stick a baby to death with a bayonet, to go hunting humans with the same casualness he might shoot squirrels. Ask any kid. That person started out as a school bully. He as also a coward. He wants victims who cannot fight back.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Backing a Crook

As of 2011-06-30 Americans have spent $4 trillion dollars on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and that is not counting lifetime care for the injured vets. What do they have to show for that massive expenditure? A stalemate! The man they are backing in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has proven himself to be one of the planet’s most crooked politicians and its biggest drug lord. Americans are panicking about the deficits, but oddly refuse to even consider reducing the massive military spending for optional, illegal, non-defensive wars.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Bad News

The bad news is all male humans have something in common with our ancestors, even right back the creature who was the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. We enjoy forming small gangs with other males, making surprise attacks on other groups including women and children and killing them. The good news is, in modern society, even with modern warfare and criminal gangs, we do it only ¼ as often as we did when we were hunter gatherers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bait and Switch War

The Afghan war was a classic bait and switch. Bush started the war ostensibly to catch bin Laden. It quickly come clear bin Laden was not in Afghanistan and by the US military’s own estimate there were less than 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Did the war stop? Nope. Bush redirected it against the Taliban, presumably to wrest from them the prize of prizes, the Saudi Arabia of lithium (and other strategic minerals) and to revive the trillion dollar a year heroin trade the Taliban had utterly squashed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bald Women

Americans seem surprised that people who acted as translators are becoming personae non grata in Afghanistan and Iraq. Surely they knew this was coming. When the German occupation of France ended, the French viciously turned on the collaborators, even prostitutes. Surely you have seen the newsreels of collaborator women with their heads forcibly shaved.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Banned Chemical Weapons

If you are an American, have a look at this  picture. Through your taxes you paid American soldiers to torture this child to death with illegal chemical weapons in an illegal war. How should the soldiers who did this be punished? What would be a fair punishment for your part in the crime? This is just the tip of the iceberg. Your country has performed countless acts of extreme cruelty in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars — depravity that rivals the ancient Romans. How can you possibly claim to be proud of your country?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Barack the Sham

Unfortunately, Barack Obama turned out nothing like the way he presented himself during the election. He force fed rich stockbrokers and bankers with a trillion dollars of public cash that they used to pay themselves extravagant bonuses. He made no changes to the leverage or transparency rules to prevent the need for another bailout. He legally accepted large amounts of money from the health care insurance companies prior to the election. In return, he did nothing to help universal health care along. He greatly escalated the Afghan war. He spent more on the military than any president in history, more than all other countries combined. His views on torture and war crimes match the ultra-right views of Cheney’s and the Nazis accused at the end of WWII. He refused to speak up for gay marriage rights. He left don’t ask don’t tell in place and has continued to dishonorably discharge gays in the military. It is possible he caved into terrible threats to his family from the military and industry, however, it is even more likely he was their puppet all along. Like Reagan, industry picked him as their Democratic spokesperson because he was a good actor and orator. He is such a disappointment, nearly everyone, myself included, are still in denial.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bashar al-Assad

Bashar al-Assad is such a miserable excuse for a human being. He has killed so many people and created so much misery all over the planet. What is the matter with Obama that he does not send a drone through his living room window and be done with him and his buddies?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bashar al-Assad

Bashar al-Assad, the dictator of Syria, is such an evil man. Not even Hitler used poison gas, much less on children as he does. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of an assassination by drone.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Basic War Fact

Americans don’t seem to understand that when they attack a small country, within a decade, the American people will get tired of the war. The people they attacked will never give up. Unlike the Americans, they have a dog in the fight — freedom from American domination.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Battle Centenaries

I protest governments hosting celebrations of the centennials or sesquicentennials of battles. What are these really for?

We should grow up and stop dredging up old grievances. It is unseemly as a wife who rehashes every lifetime slight every time she has an argument.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Be Wary of the Military

A wise society recognises the downside of the military. Anyone exposed to it becomes callous and comes to enjoy killing and creating misery for its own sake. You don’t want to make Israel’s mistake of putting every citizen through military indoctrination.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bees and the Bear

Bees may not be able to stop a bear from ravaging their hive, but they can make him uncomfortable enough he leaves early and thinks twice before another visit. Recall Hitler and Czechoslovakia. The world backed off completely and let him have his way. Similarly it let Putin annex the Crimea without any resistance. There are shades of grey between doing nothing and all out nuclear war. We should at least have made life awkward or unpleasant for Putin.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Behaviour Of Criminals

I have watched hundreds of interviews with Nazis, American war criminals, general criminals and third world dictators. I have come to two conclusions:

  1. If one group of people gain absolute power over another, they inevitably physically and sexually abuse their victims.
  2. Criminals are always convinced that they are innocent. They always come up with some rationalisation why their evil deeds where justified or at least that they had no choice.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Beheading

If you behead a boy with a sword or by dropping a bomb from 1.52 km (0.95 mile) he is just as dead as if you behead him with a sword. They are both equally sick crimes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Beheadings

ISIS is not only barbaric but stupid. Beheadings just get the civilian populations of USA and Canada riled and even more willing to devote troops and material to squash them. Religion has acted on ISIS brains like toxoplasmosis, making them foolishly unafraid of superpowers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Being a Raindrop

Trying to stop war with a website is a bit like being a raindrop trying to put out a forest fire. The raindrop has the consolation that all wild fires eventually are put out, mainly by the concerted action of raindrops.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Beneficiaries of War

The only people who have benefited from the Afghan and the Iraq wars are wealthy investors who have sold goods and services to the USA military at inflated prices with no-bid contracts. Other wealthy investors benefited from the oil and lithium spoils of war. Yet, oddly, for the first time in US history, the wealthy have been able buy the Republican politicians so the rich did not have to pay even a penny extra to fund the war. It was funded on the backs of the middle class and by borrowing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Best Defence

Given that a weapon capable of destroying a city will fit in a suitcase, I would think the best defence would be to avoid abusing as few people or countries as practical to the point of wanting to kill you.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Betrayal

It is curious that people consider betraying one’s country such a serious crime. Would betraying Nazi Germany have been a crime? There is no a priori reason to believe that your country invariably has the moral right on its side. You have to examine on a case by case basis. Oddly, most Americans consider it treason to fail to cover up for war crimes committed by Americans, though they would not approve of the same behaviour from other nationals.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Biblical Killing

It is so biblical the way Bush and Obama both love to obliterate the families of the men they assassinate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bigger Not Always Better

Most citizens think a bigger military will protect their democracy, but it can work the other way, as in Chile in 1973-09-11 when the Chilean military overthrew the government.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Biggest Procurement Ever

Stephen Harper wants to make the biggest procurement in Canadian history of 65 F35 fighter jets. Just who would Canada fight with these weapons and what weapons would the enemy be using? The USA is one candidate, but these jets would be no match to the American’s overwhelming numbers of even more advanced jets. Incursions on Canadian sovereignty will mostly likely be oil drilling rigs and ruggedised cargo ships disputing Canada’s claim to jurisdiction. F35s are not an appropriate response.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bigots are Motivated By Malice

Usually people are motivated by hope of some benefit, e.g. money, sex, fame, entertainment, comfort, family… Sometimes they are motivated by desire for revenge, e.g. many Palestinians would like to kill off the Jews who invaded and evicted them from Palestine, but underneath that malice is the positive intention to simply have the Jews get off their back. However, bigots are motivated purely from malice, with no benefit to themselves. Consider what benefit comes to a Taliban terrorist who kills girls who dare to seek an education? What benefit comes to a Christian who votes to block marriage equality? What benefit comes from treating some race or nationality as second class citizens?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

bin Laden Consensus

It is so part of the consensus assumption, that you have probably forgotten that you have yet to see any evidence that bin Laden pulled off 2001-09-11, much less pulled it off without inside help. You just trusted Bush when he told you the evidence was solid but classified (the same as his solid but classified evidence for WMDs in Iraq).

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bioweapons

You can make a case you need to develop biological weapons in the lab so that you can create defences for them, but it is insane to stockpile them. By far the most likely victim of them is yourself.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Black Civil War Soldiers

1,778,975 black soldiers fought for the union in the civil war. For the first year they were not paid. Had they not fought, the United States would be two countries today and one of them would be an apartheid state like Israel.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Blaming All Muslims

Americans blaming all Muslims for the crimes of Osama bin Laden (and all those who helped with 2001-09-11) is just as ridiculous as blaming all Christians for the crimes of Timothy McVeigh.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Blaming Muslims

Blaming all the world’s Muslims for 2001-09-11 is even sillier than blaming all the world’s Christians for Hitler.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Blind to the Causes of 2001-09-11

Nearly all Americans believe they were 100% innocent and blameless for 2001-09-11. Some consider the possibility of inside help or a false flag operation but very few study how it might have happened as an unfolding of natural political forces. They fervently believe it came out of nowhere without motivation, other than irrational hate or envy. Americans almost never study why others hate them or what wrongs they have committed to generate that hate. The problem is Americans are filled with religious conviction that they can do no wrong. This makes them blind.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Blind Leading the Blind

The expression the blind leading the blind comes from WWI (World War I). Soldiers blinded by poison gas attacks would be lead around in chains, each soldier with his hand on the shoulder of the soldier in front of him.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Blinded by Patriotism

Blinded by patriotism, it never occurred to the Germans to look on the Nazi soldiers as criminals until after the war, according to Leni Riefenstahl, the young woman who made Hitler’s propaganda film Triumph of the Will. The same holds today for Americans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bloody Greeting

You’d think returning US soldiers would at least have the decency to change out of their blood-stained, DU-contaminated camouflage gear before greeting their families.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bloody History

History plays out like a bad boy movie with bluster, bullying and bloodshed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Blowing Money on the Military

Canada’s plan to drastically increase military spending are foolish for a number of reasons:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Blowing Up The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)

If someone blew up the CIA building, you could make a case it was not terrorism, but rather a justified act of self-defence in war. The CIA has become a military organisation. The drones blowing up families in Pakistan are piloted from the basement of the CIA building. Terminating those drone pilots would be as justified as shooting down a bomber. Assassinating drone pilots in their homes would be equivalent to bombing pilot barracks in WWII. I don’t think Obama has thought through all the consequences of his strong reliance on drones.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Boeing Ad

Boeing advertises its military aircraft make our forces safer and strongerWhat does that mean, really? It means they enable the military to bomb more civilians per dollar with fewer lost planes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bogus Reasons to Attack Afghanistan

When I ask Americans why they are attacking Afghanistan I get two basic answers:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bogus Self-Defence Claim

Americans claiming self-defence as the motivation for occupying Iraq is like Shaq O’Neal claiming self defence for mugging Gary Coleman.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bomb Your Way to Popularity

There is no way you can bomb someone into liking you. Every blow you strike in offence will eventually be paid back with interest. Americans are insane in their belief that if they kill enough children and torture enough teenagers that their victims will give up hating America and plotting revenge.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Boston Marathon Overreaction

On one hand, the flat-out effort to catch the Boston Marathon bombers did manage to catch the culprits in a remarkable five days. There were lockdowns, business closures, transit shutdowns, cellphone shutdowns, gunfights. There were 1000 lawmen. This was an extremely expensive manhunt and one that grabbed the 24/7 attention of the media. The problem I have with all this public fuss is if you imagine how the proceedings looked through the eyes of a young would-be terrorist with sympathies for America’s victims or a disaffected young American who has a chip on his shoulder against all humanity. He would see the manhunt as glorious martyrdom, a chance to grab the US eagle by the tail, terrorise it and shake it silly. What a heroic Bonny and Clyde way to die! In contrast, when the Russians deal with terrorists, they do their best to appear unperturbed, invulnerable and implacable. They don’t want to give the satisfaction to the terrorists of having had any measurable effect. My other concern is, if police have killed both suspects, we will never find out about the motive, funders, trainers and other plans for terrorism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bought-Off Politicians

If you oppose the Afghanistan and/or Iraq war, there only a very few places in the USA where there is a candidate running who says he wants to end either war, even though almost half of Americans think that way. The reason is the defence industry has bought off, threatened or blackmailed nearly every politician, including president Obama. This is similar to the fate of a German living in Hitler’s Germany, where there was no one to vote for who did not favour world domination by war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Boys and Toys

On 2014-07-17 Russian separatists shot down Malaysian flight MH17 killing all 298 people on board. But why? What possible benefit could come from murdering a random collection of tourists and AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) researchers? I have two hypotheses:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

BP the Terrorist

Al Qaeda no longer needs to launch major attacks against the USA; they have outsourced it to BP.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Brace For Counter Attacks

Americans are naïve to think they can attack two nations unprovoked, torture and butcher civilians all without any counter attacks. Americans are in such denial they insist on calling any counter attacks terrorism (even attacks on occupying American soldiers) and calling any POW s captured, terrorists. A terrorist is someone who kills or threatens civilians hoping to change their political opinions. By definition, killing a soldier is not terrorism. Americans are the main terrorists given how many civilians they have killed, mostly children and how many soldiers and mercenaries they have hired to terrorise civilians.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bragging About A Criminal Past

American male politicians commonly brag they have committed a capital crime. The voters are duly impressed by this bloody-minded confession. I refer to aiding and abetting (aka serving in) an illegal aggressive (first strike) war such as Viet Nam, Afghanistan or Iraq. This trumpeting is even more bizarre than a female politician bragging about how many abortions she has had.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Brandishing Weapons

In the USA, it is legal to parade around with weapons. But in Afghanistan it is a crime punishable by summary execution by drone.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Breaking Agreement

The illegal American occupation of Iraq has been going on for 15 years, 1 month and 17 days, since 2003-03-20. America signed a treaty agreeing not to attack other nations unless attacked first.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Breaking Up Fights

When two children are fighting, they don’t usually want an adult to break up the fight.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bribed Collaborators

Americans bribed Iraq collaborators to betray their country with promises of American citizenship and jobs that pay well in US dollars. On pullout, the Americans reneged on those promises. The collaborators are now in hot water without the Americans to protect them from their fellow citizens. I have no sympathy for them. People should not sell out their countries to foreign plunderers, especially when they killed them for money.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Brilliant General

Someday the terms brilliant general and brave soldier will sound as oxymoronic as brilliant serial killer and brave child rapist.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Britain’s Broken Promise

In 1938, Britain broke its treaty promise to Czechoslovakia to defend it against Germany. Had it kept its promise, it is possible WWII could have been averted. It would have poured cold water on the Hitler’s and Germany’s breast beating.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

British Betrayal

In the war of 1812 the native people allied themselves with the British to protect what was later to become Canada. The British promised them their own country if Canada was saved. The British reneged on the promise and left the native people to the genocidal policies of the Americans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

British Grenadiers

There is a cheery song Canadian children are taught to sing in school The British Grenadiers. It celebrates a class of soldier who rips the limbs off people with explosives.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Budgets For Science vs War

The most expensive project in interplanetary exploration was the 1997 $3.8 billion Cassini probe. In contrast, the war in Iraq cost $9 billion a month.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bullies

Bullies usually work in gangs. They pick on those much smaller than they are. They are relentless; the bullying of a particular victim goes on for years. Bullies steal from their victims. They jeer at the victim for some perceived difference and use that (e.g. race, religion, sexual preference) to select victims. When challenged, they justify their bullying on the grounds of self-defence. Bullies usually have a dominant sadistic leader with a number of sycophantic followers. Bullies have no sense of fair play in their fights. They enjoy concocting new ways to torment and terrify. Remind you of anyone? the USA and gang in its treatment of Afghanistan and Iraq for example?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bullshit Justifications

I just about throw up when Americans try to claim they invaded Afghan and Iraq, occupied them for over a decade, killed hundreds of thousands of people, set up puppet dictatorships, spend a trillion dollars — all purely out of altruism to give the people of Afghanistan and Iraq democratic freedom. Americans are the stingiest of all the developed nations. The are too cheap to even provide vitamin A capsules to prevent blindness that costs only a few cents. There is no way they are going to spend $1 trillion just to be nice.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bullying the Americans

Starting with the Monroe Doctrine 1823-12-02 the United States has been bullying the Americas and a considerable chunk of the rest of the world. The United States attempted the genocide of the indigenous people and are gradually making restitution. How long until it gets squeezed for the bullying those outside the country?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bureaucratic Squabbles

The NSA (National Security Agency) has transcripts of all of bin Laden’s telephone conversations, but will not let the CIA have any information from them. It sounds like the NSA considers the CIA a greater threat to American security than Al Qaeda. Who is NSA protecting, bin Laden and his fellow conspirators inside and outside the USA or the USA?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bush Admin Lies

Back in 2003, I saw all the top Bush administration people lie through their teeth about having 100% solid irrefutable evidence that Saddam had bioterror, chemical weapons, sarin, ICBMs (Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles) and would have nukes any day now. It turned out there were no WMDs of any kind. The Italians warned Bush his Niger data was forged. The French warned Bush Saddam could not possibly have been buying yellowcake from Niger because they had a contract to buy 100% of it. Bush sent Ambassador Joe Wilson, a life long Republican, to Niger to investigate. He reported back that the evidence was a forgery. Bush expected Wilson to play along with the lie, but Wilson went public. The Bush administration then punished Wilson by outing his wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA agent hoping that would result in her death. Wilson later wrote a book The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity: A Diplomat’s Memoir

It turn out all the evidence was from an anonymous, alcoholic Iraqi code-named Curveball whom the Bush administration gave $40,000 a month to provide lurid tales about Saddam and intelligence. They never met him. They never cross checked what he had to say. Why? They did not want information. They wanted exciting, plausibly deniable stories they could use to justify invasion.

What’s more, the entire FOX news crew all lied too, claiming they had just seen 100% solid proof, that no sane person would fail to find completely convincing, when in fact Colin Powell had presented no evidence at all at the U.N.. He just made lurid assertions about the danger of not going to war and then said Trust me. It is interesting to revisit the old news casts, armed with the knowledge they were all lying, to see the various tics that would have given them away if back then we were open to the possibility the entire administration and media could all corroborate on a monstrous lie. You can see the clips in the video War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Bush Conspiracy Theory

George W. Bush’s conspiracy theory of what happened on 2001-09-11 is one of the most preposterous offered.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bush Depravity

In terms of depravity (child rape) and total numbers tortured, Bush and Cheney surpassed most of the Roman emperors. Part of the reason is they got their jollies indirectly through written reports and video tape (which judge Hellerstein unsuccessfully tried to subpoena). They rarely got the opportunity to enjoy hands-on sessions. This second hand mayhem was unsatisfying for them, which lead to extreme escalation, much the way Hitler went off the deep end.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bush Protected from Prosecution

Iraq POW tortured by Americans George W. Bush admitted in his autobiography Decision Points to authorising waterboarding, though not yet to torture like that of the Iraqi POW tortured by the Americans in the photo to the right or the much-photographed torture at Abu Ghraib under the command of the sadistic Janice Karpinski. This is illegal both by American and international law. Yet no one has yet had the balls to prosecute him. Even in WWII, Americans did not torture the Nazis, not even the SS, when surely there was much more justification. Iraq has never attacked the USA and had nothing whatsoever to do with 2001-09-11. Even Bush admits this.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Bush’s Child Porn

Everyone has forgotten Gannongate. There was plenty of evidence Bush was into homosexual military kink. History may prove to us one of the reasons Bush started and prolonged the Afghan and Iraq wars was to ensure his supply of custom snuff kink child pornography. This is not just speculation. Bush refused to hand over his child rape and torture tapes to Judge Hellerstein. This would not be the first time a leader’s sadism lead his entire country astray.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Business ⇒ War

There is a trillion dollar set of businesses that depend on continuous war for their profit. Now, with the Citizens United supreme court ruling, those businesses can buy politicians with whatever it takes to keep the wars rolling. Business will permit a change of war venue as a sop to the voters, but not cessation of war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

But What About 2001-09-11?

Americans are furious with me when I point out that aggressive war (attacking first, unprovoked) is a capital war crime, in particular the unprovoked invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They respond But what about 2001-09-11? Even President Bush said that bin Laden and his Saudi Al Qaeda henchmen, were responsible, not Afghans or Iraqis. On 2003-09-17, Bush and his administration explicitly stated Iraq had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. Attacking Iraq is like attacking the USA for something Colombian criminals allegedly did, on the grounds both nations are nominally Christian. Americans have justified their carnage with a racist belief that the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim, blaming a billion people, including the children, for the 2001-09-11 crimes of a handful.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Butchering Parents

There is a scene in Dexter, a TV show, where a serial killer stabs Dexter’s mom to death in front of Dexter as a child. It is gut wrenching. In real life this happens every day in Iraq and Afghanistan where parents are butchered in front of their children at the hands of Americans, with all manner of weapons. I can never forgive them for this. These are deeds evil beyond imagination.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Butchery over Taxes

Americans went mad and lined up and shot each other by the tens of thousands in the civil war. They consider this a holy experience and the butchery on both sides a noble achievement. What were they fighting over? Freeing the slaves, nope. It was taxes. They were butchering each other over taxes. I think the participants were fighting mindlessly, purely out of team spirit.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Buy Your Enemies

I think war is becoming obsolete. It is cheaper and safer to simply buy your rival’s countries out from under them. You can even do it on the installment plan. You not only take their territory, you get their infrastructure and work force intact.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Buzz Cuts

The military buzz-cuts recruits to intimidate them, destroy individuality and make them more obedient. Recruits must submit to this if they want to get to kill people, but why do civilians shave their heads bald and erase their individuality?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Canadian Lies

In the Canadian leadership debate on 2011-04-12, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper both told two mega lies:

If the majority of Afghans welcomed the invasion, then the war would have been over in months. How could a minority of Afghans have prevailed for 16 years and 7 months against the combined might of the majority of Afghans, the USA, Canada, Britain…?

We have imposed dictator Hamid Karzai on the Afghans. He is the biggest drug lord on the planet. He is the world’s most corrupt politician. He imposes draconian Shari’a law, (e.g. whipping women), the same as the original Taliban government did. There is no way you can characterise that as bringing democracy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Canadian War Criminals

Canada officially pulled out of Afghanistan in 2011, but that does not let them off the hook for their illegal occupation prior to that. All of the Canadian soldiers who aided or abetted that war are guilty of a capital war crime, namely aiding and abetting an aggressive war. May they all hang or rot the rest of their lives in prison!

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Canusans In Denial

I hold Americans and Canadians in extreme contempt who acknowledge that their countries drop bombs on cities in Afghanistan and Iraq, who acknowledge these cities are demolished to rubble, but refuse to acknowledge that doing so kills large numbers of civilians and children. They are as deliberately blind as Germans in the time of Hitler.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Captain America Is A Nazi

I don’t like the popularity of Captain America. It is part of the Nazification of the USA. Just as in Nazi Germany, there is a rise is considering a brutal conquering military as admirable. There is a rise in America uber alles sentiment.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cause of Nuclear Proliferation

The number one reason for nuclear proliferation is fear of attack from an existing nuclear nation. Iran fears Israel because it has nukes, has made first strikes in past and has threatened nuclear attack. Iran and North Korea fear the USA for the same reason. If we are serious about preventing nuclear proliferation, the number one priority has to be reducing the arsenals of the existing nuclear states.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Causes of War

Why do people make war on each other?

It is pretty hard to create more resources to alleviate war. However, it might be possible to talk people out of their religions.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cease Fire

For a cease fire, you need unanimous consent. To break a cease fire, all you need is one hot head. Therefore, we should require multiple systematic violations before we consider a cease fire failed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Celebration of War

Why are politicians so willing to spend money or celebrations surrounding the war of 1812 or WWI when nobody who was involved is still alive?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Censorship

If you point out on a TV network blog that the aggressive (first strike) Afghan or Iraq wars are illegal, or than aiding and abetting them is a capital war crime, your post will be pulled. Apparently those who control the TV networks want the public to support the wars and to believe they are both legal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Charities for War Criminals

If somebody volunteered to build homes for disabled Nazi war criminals, I doubt CNN would be fêting them as heroes. Yet when volunteers build homes for wounded American war criminals, it does.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Chasing Soldiers Home

Not a single general or politician has expressed concern the Taliban or the Iraqis will chase the US or Canadian soldiers back home if troops withdraw. Why are they so sure?

So where do soldiers get off claiming they are killing kids in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect the freedom of Americans and Canadians? That is a monstrous lie. They are killing them because they enjoy killing. The US and Canada fund their mayhem because they want the natural resources in Iraq and Afghanistan. These soldiers are not heroes. They are, to a man, war criminals because aiding or abetting an aggressive (first strike) war is a capital (death penalty) offence. They do not deserve to be honoured on Remembrance Day.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cheating Soldiers

Colombian soldiers have been murdering civilians, then passing them off as dead rebel soldiers. Why? They get a few days off for each extra corpse they bring in, paid by the military as a killing incentive. Soldiers are the lowest form of life on the planet.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cheering Alexander

To this day the Greeks cheer Alexander and his sadistic conquests. Romans still reenact the bloody conquests of Imperial Rome. British and Americans celebrate the genocide of the indigenous people’s of North America. Germans hailed the Nazi hordes. So it is no surprise the Americans cheer on their soldiers in two illegal wars against two militarily insignificant nations, Afghanistan and Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Chemical Weapons Users

What countries use chemical weapons in warfare? USA under Johnson, Nixon and Bush, Iraq under Saddam, Iran under Khomeini.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cheney the War Criminal

Cheney is an admitted war criminal. He brazenly committed a number of capital war crimes. His goal is to persuade the people he had the right to violate the law because he thought it was a good idea. It one thing to lobby to change the law and quite another to demand to be excused from it. It will be a sad thing if Cheney dies of natural causes before he is prosecuted and ideally executed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Child Abuse

According to the CBC Ideas Program, 25% of people who enlist in the US military were abused as children. That might explain why they are so eager to go kill people on the other side of the world no threat to the USA.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Child Killer Heroes

Clifford Olson, serial killer, the beast of BC, murdered 11 children. 9 child kills would be unremarkable for a Canadian or American soldier and yet they are still celebrated as heroes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Child Killers

The leaders of Hamas and Israel out of frustration at not being able to kill each other, kill children. These leaders all deserve death by hanging, drawing and quartering.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Child Killers

The most horrible thing that can happen is for someone to murder your child. Soldiers do this so casually for the most trivial of motives because they get a kick out of it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Child Killers Hug Children

One of the creepiest scenes I see commonly on TV is a little girl racing into the arms of her father, still in camouflage gear, fresh from a war zone where he was murdering and quite possibly raping children only days earlier.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Childish Behaviour

The world’s leaders behave in such a childish way. They kill women and children using banned weapons that injure and kill in a maximally painful and hideous way. If these leaders behaved this way in their families, their wives would immediately leave and child protective services would take away their children. They have no restraint, no moral code. Dark emotions run them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Choice of Profession

Soldiering is a selfish choice of profession for a family man. He deserts his family for months at a time. If he gets PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), he abandons his rôle as father.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Choosing The Target

On 2013-07-01 terrorists plotted to set off three pressure cooker bombs on the lawn of the BC legislative assembly in Victoria, a few kilometers from where I live. The few hints the media have given suggest the terrorists wanted revenge for Canada’s rôle in attacking and occupying Afghanistan. What Canada did was illegal and utterly shameful. I can thus understand their desire for revenge, but what a bone-headed choice of target! Victoria is the anti-war capital of Canada, a city of mostly retired people. Why go after them? They had nothing to do with that filthy war. Why not hurt someone who had some remote connection with the war, like George Bush who arm twisted Jean Chrétien into joining it? Why not Stephen Harper who cheerlead it and dragged in on as long as possible? Why not the soldiers who signed up for the fun of bullying, butchering and torturing innocent Afghans who were no threat to Canada? If terrorists insist on killing random civilians, why not at least pick on ones who voted for the war, such as the Albertans?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christian Medallions

With official sanction, US soldiers hand out Christian medallions at checkpoints in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Taliban use this as proof that the US intends to interfere with their religion. Imagine the effect if occupying Muslim soldiers handed out Islamic medallions.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christian Republican

A Christian Republican is a contradiction in terms. For a Christian, war is supposed to be a last resort. For a Republican, it is the first priority.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christian Soldiers

Why does the military want Christian soldiers and reject non-Christian recruits?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christopher Hitchens Was Wrong

The late Christopher Hitchens claimed the Iraq invasion was justified on the grounds Islam is an odious religion that causes its adherents to treat each other and their neighbours badly. I disagree:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

CIA Spies

In Pakistan, the CIA posed as doctors doing an immunisation program to spy on bin Laden. This was a stupid, short-sighted thing to do. Now immunisation workers are being killed as CIA spies. And of course, thousands are children are going without polio and other vaccinations. And even in North America, people have become fearful of vaccinating their children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Civil Rights Should Remain Inviolate

If you permit the authorities to violate civil rights in secret in the pursuit of terrorism, you automatically OK violations for any other purpose.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Civil War Soldiers

There are thousands of photos from the American civil war. I had imagined the war was fought by fat old walruses with flowing beards, but the soldiers were mostly skinny young men in their teens and twenties.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Civil Wars

The really nasty wars where hundreds of thousands of people are killed are civil wars. When innocent children are killed, maimed and tortured it is everyone’s business to put a stop to it, not just the citizens of their country where nearly everyone has gone temporarily insane.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Civilian Casualties

If coalition bombers kill more civilians in the middle east than ISIS kills in terrorist attacks we have no moral leg to stand on.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cleaning Up the Gene Pool

The bright side of pointless conflicts like the Iraq war is that the most sadistic and stupid members of society sign up to become maimed, disfigured, shell shocked and killed, thus taking those vicious genes out of the pool. At the very least, these types are blocked from breeding for their term of service.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Clinging to the Past

People who keep dredging up WWI and WWII remind me of harpy wives who bring up something foolish their husband did on their honeymoon every time they have a fight, even 60 years later. Give it a rest already!

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cognitive Dissonance

Soldiers will tell you they love killing people to fight for freedom and they don’t like the government telling people what to. Yet there is nobody with fewer rights than a soldier. They are all but slaves. And further nobody gets pushed around and screwed by the government more than they do. Like slaves, they are not necessarily free to go, even if their contract said they would be on a certain date. This is what psychiatrists call cognitive dissonance.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Collaborator Traitors

Now that US soldiers are leaving Iraq, collaborators are getting nervous about reprisals from their fellow citizens. The way I see it, these people are traitors. They sold out their country to make a few bucks. The USA promised the world to the collaborators without any intention of delivering. The collaborators were stupid and greedy enough to believe the Americans. They deserve what ever misfortune comes their way.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Collateral BS

Imagine if Al Qaeda killed 30,000,000 American civilians, then bin Laden announced that none of those deaths counted since they all were collateral damage. Al Qaeda, as devout Muslims, did not intend to kill those people. The unfortunate folk just got in the way when Al Qaeda demolished buildings. Al Qaeda had after all warned those people to evacuate the cities. As proof of their good faith, they were building 50 schools to teach the word of Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him. That is how silly American protestations of innocence sound outside the USA.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Collateral Damage

If you go shooting rabbits in a field where kids are playing and you kill twenty kids as collateral damage, you are still guilty of murder. Soldiers claim this reasoning does not apply to them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Collusion is No Excuse

When a gang of thugs beats up a man and steals his watch and wallet, pleading innocence based on the fact that there was consensus about beating up the man, would get nowhere. Similarly the coalition of the coerced are just as guilty of aggressive war against Iraq for its oil and Afghanistan for its minerals as the USA would have been had it acted alone.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Colonial History

If you study colonial history you see some familiar patterns. A technologically advanced power starts by convincing itself the people inhabiting the target territory are subhuman. Then they slaughter them. They then take their resources. Then they enslave them. Then when the financial returns are not worth the bother, they leave and a massive fight for power ensues. The Americans started the process by improperly referring to Iraqi or Afghan citizens as terrorists, even though they had not killed a single US civilian.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Combating Terrorism

Studies of terrorist groups over history shows they survive an average of 8 years. They fade away for a number of reasons, but rarely because of military action. The problem is military action increases local recruitment. It is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) Why military force will not work on ISIS click to watch

Common American War Criminals

The American people have accumulated a huge amount of bad karma by passively acceding to the illegal, unprovoked invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, torture, the abandonment of the Geneva conventions of war, the targeting of civilians and the use of banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). The American people accumulated even more bad karma than the Germans under Hitler. The Germans had two excuses that the Americans did not have.

  1. Hitler hid most of his atrocities from the people. Americans, in contrast, sat around their TVs on 2003-03-20 eating popcorn, cheering and watching as American aircraft bombed the residential neighbourhoods of Baghdad, thus targeting mainly children. Americans were as decadent as any ancient Romans. I was with some Iraqi ex-patriates at the time at a TV station. They were screaming and crying as they saw the homes and apartment blocks of their familiar neighbourhoods blown to bits. They felt Bush had betrayed them. He promised liberation from Saddam, and now he was attacking Iraq’s children. I will never forgive the American people for their callousness on that day.
  2. Had the Germans protested, they would have been tortured and/or killed.

The Americans have behaved so badly, I don’t think they deserve to continue to exist as a nation. On a subconscious level, they seem to acknowledge this. They are committing mass financial suicide and are dismantling their democracy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Comparing Monsters

ISIS likes to cut civilian’s heads off with swords. America likes to decapitate civilians, separating the head from the body by using explosives dropped from 9.14 km (5.68 miles) or delivered via drones.

ISIS like to stone women to death. America like to kill women by burying then in rubble from buildings demolished by using by using explosives dropped from 9.14 km (5.68 miles). ISIS is more dramatic and gut-terrifying, but America is more ruthlessly efficient in killing the most civilians most quickly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Comparing Nazis and Americans

If you read about someone who lived in Germany during WWII and they claimed, I think these world domination wars are a bad idea, but I support Hitler and fully support the troops in everything they do. you might think this guy had a terminal case of denial. You would say, You can’t support people prosecuting a war if you don’t agree with the war. This guy makes no sense. However, this very stance describes the majority of Americans. They are all flipping nuts. This craziness seems to make sense to them only because they hear it over and over on TV.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Condition of Ending Wars

I suspect the Afghanistan and Iraq wars will only end once America starts a new war(s) at least as costly. Halliburton, Xe (Blackwater), Carlyle Group, General Electric and friends would not permit it any other way.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Conditioning

You know your soldiers are sufficiently conditioned to follow orders when you can ask them to line up. The first goes and stands by a stake. The next twelve form a firing squad. They kill the soldier at the stake and throw his body into a trench, then the lead member of the firing squad goes and stands by the stake and the next soldier in line joins the firing squad, repeating the cycle every 15 seconds.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Confessions Under Torture

Anyone who has read about the medieval witch trials understands that confessions under torture are meaningless. Oddly, the US military is mostly populated with people who don’t understand this. I think it is because they like torturing because it gives them a sexual thrill, not because they seriously hope to glean information.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Confessions Under Torture

We know that in the dark ages, people would confess to any nonsense under torture. Why then do modern day Americans dare to claim torture is a legitimate interrogation tool?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Conflating the Taliban and Al Qaeda

Listening to President Obama speak about his valiant fight in Afghanistan for freedom, God, Democracy and all that is sacred, you’d think it was the Taliban who had attacked on 2001-09-11, not Al-Qaeda Saudis. Think back. The official reason for the invasion was America’s impossible-to-comply-with demand that Afghanistan capture bin Laden for America, hand him over without an extradition treaty, or an extradition hearing and without presenting any evidence of his guilt. The USA refused Afghanistan’s offer hold an ad hoc extradition hearing to present evidence. Then USA refused the Afghanistan’s offer to turn bin Laden over to a third country for trial. The real reason for the invasion, of course, was of course was the Taliban refused to give Unocal a free right of way for its oil pipeline. That is why Bush appointed mostly ex-Unocal people, including Karzai himself, to the puppet government.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Conflating Terrorists and POWs

Over and over, Cheney got away with conflating terrorists and POWs He even got away with it when he said on 2009-06-01 that Americans captured terrorists on the battlefield who were trying to kill Americans soldiers (who had illegally invaded Iraq). Those are prisoners of war. A terrorist is someone who kills civilians. Yet no one ever calls Cheney on his endlessly repeated lie.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Conflicting Beliefs

Most Americans know that the official story of 2001-09-11 is that the Saudi terrorists were killed in the suicide attacks. Most Americans know that the USA attacked Iraq under false pretences, unprovoked. Most Americans know that American attacked Afghanistan unprovoked. Yet nearly all Americans also believe they are fighting wars of self-defence. This is utter nonsense and if any American stopped to question in for 5 seconds, they would realise it is nonsense because neither Afghanistan nor Iraq had anything to do with 9/11! Even Bush said so. Yet most Americans believe this lie because most other Americans believe it, like genetically modified sheep. They are so firmly convinced that Americans are the good guys that have created a transparently delusional story to cover up American wrongdoing. It fools nobody but Americans. Nobody else believes Americans are incapable of atrocities. Even in the face of evidence that Americans routinely torture, they cling to the notion that American soldiers are perfect boy scouts.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Conscientious Resistor or Traitor

What would you call a citizen of Germany during WWII who exposed the atrocities of the holocaust or who sabotaged the German war effort or who passed on intelligence to the Allies that harmed Hitler’s war effort? Perhaps a conscientious resistor? Hitler, of course, would have termed them traitors and would have executed them. However, what does history call them? Whatever it is, it should also apply to people to did similar things to counter the war efforts of those countries that illegally and aggressively (in a first strike) invaded and plundered both Afghanistan and Iraq. I would include Julian Assange and Bradley/Chelsea Manning. The passive Americans who agreed to the atrocity, the torture and the plunder don’t even deserve to call themselves of the same species as those two. They are indistinguishable from Nazis.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Consequences of Torture

By resorting to routine torture of all detainees in Afghanistan, NATO convinced the Taliban that death was far preferable to letting NATO win. NATO behaved even worse than the Russians and, as a consequence, created even stronger resistance.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Consequences Of War Crimes

A competent bank robber is well aware of both the penalties for getting caught and the size of the take. Similarly a competent soldier should be aware that aiding and abetting an aggressive war (first strike, such as Iraq or Afghanistan) is a capital war crime. He should be sure the enjoyment he gets from the killing, raping, torturing and looting exceeds the potential for prosecution. He should be aware that sometimes the consequences are delayed. Some Nazis were not prosecuted until they were in their 90s. War crime prosecution depends on the changing political climate and balance of national powers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Considering Suicide Attacks

Under what extreme circumstances would you consider participating in suicide attacks? Perhaps if some foreign power had invaded and occupied your country for 16 years, raped your women and children, rounded up and tortured your young men, desecrated your places of worship, used hideously cruel, illegal weapons of war on your civilian populations and/or killed your family. What is your evidence the Taliban are any different from you?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Consistency

I can understand why Canadian mothers are horrified when their sons go off to join ISIS to rape, bomb, torture, murder and behead innocent children. But what baffles me is why other Canadian mothers, whose sons did the exact same thing, under the banner of Canada, are bursting with pride.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Contempt for the Military

Here are a few of the reasons I hold military men in contempt:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Continuing the Afghan War

On 2011-05-25 the US House of Representatives voted 215-204 to continue the Afghan war? What on earth for? Those that voted for it did so because they take money from the defence industry that want perpetual war because it means perpetual profits even when there is no point to the war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Contractors

Imagine Hitler had created a class of soldier recruited from prisons — violent criminals who were sent into war with no instructions, no code of conduct and no laws constraining them. They were free to kill, rape and torture as the spirit moved them. This probably would have seriously harmed Mr. Hitler’s reputation. Yet Americans cheered their country on when it did the same thing sending contractors into Iraq and Afghanistan.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Contrast

When I listen to NATO leaders toasting each other and joking around, I find it hard to reconcile with the mission that brings them all together — exterminating Muslims.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Controlling Afghanistan

Hillary Clinton believes America cannot leave Afghanistan until they can control what happens after they leave. For pity sake. America can’t even control what happens with an occupying force of 100,000.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Convince You To Take Up Arms

If you were a person who wanted nothing to do with war, what could convince you to take up arms? Somebody could kill your wife and children hideously and painfully using banned weapons; they could imprison and torture you; they could occupy your country treating you as vermin and stripping it of its resources; they could spit on your religion. That just might do it. No wonder the Americans are so successful at encouraging terrorist attacks, which should more properly be called vendetta attacks. You’d think Americans were deliberately inviting attacks to provide obscene profits for the defence industry.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cornered Fighters

A tiny country, Afghanistan, was able to defeat the Russians and later the Americans partly because Russians and Americans behaved so brutally that they convinced the Afghans that they had no choice but to defeat the invaders or be tortured to death.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Corpse Respect

No matter how often I see it, I find it bizarre that the American public are far more upset about how American soldiers treat Afghan corpses with insufficient respect than they are about them torturing living Afghan children, dousing Afghan women in napalm, burning babies to death with white phosphorus and poisoning the ecosystem with DU.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Corruption of War

In the 1700s, war was fought by gentlemanly rules, almost as a sport, sparing civilians. It had the salutary effect of reducing the population and reducing domestic violence by attracting violent young men to their Darwinian deaths. Today, we have ruined war for this purpose by directing it primarily at civilians and by making it too safe for the combatants.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cosmic Justice

If you whack a beehive and steal the honey, don’t complain of cosmic injustice if you get stung.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cost of Hegemony

Over the last decade the US military spent well over $2 trillion dollars trying to ensure control of oil in the middle east. I will leave it up to you to decide just how well they succeeded. How much further ahead would America be if instead they had invested that $2 trillion in alternative energy — clean nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal… then sold the technology to an energy-hungry world? The way it is now, the US has no clean technology and is just as reliant on OPEC (the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil as ever. They will have to spend trillions more to buy the new technology from China, Europe, India and, surprise, OPEC.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cost of Wars

America has spent more per capita killing, torturing and generally making life miserable for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq than even Hitler did attacking any country.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Countries Commit Crimes

Every time a criminal commits a crime, he leaves behind clues. These mistakes add up and make it possible to prosecute him. Countries too commit crimes. They cover them up with massive propaganda barrages. But with each crime, they betray more and more clues to their true hearts.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cover For Sadists

The US military works non-stop to provide a respectable cover for the sadists, rapists and racists who enlist. It is much like the way the Catholic church provides a holy cover for paedophiles who enlist in the priesthood.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Crazy ISIS

ISIS is crazy. They want a world wide caliphate run by Sharia law, even though almost nobody but them wants that. They think they know better what other people should want. That is so arrogant. The irony is, the world is pushing back, and not even ISIS eventually will live under such a caliphate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Crazy As Nazis

Imagine that you learned from reputable sources that during WWII when the allies bombed Berlin that the Berliners were shocked. They phoned and asked the radio stations why they were being attacked. Who dared attack innocent German civilians for no reason? When they were reminded Germany was at war and had been fire bombing civilians in Britain, they responded, What’s that got to do with it? You might conclude they were brain damaged or delusional, but nearly all present day Americans and Canadians suffer from the same deliberate blindness concerning the motivation of the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Creating Terrorism

ISIS is the most successful terrorist group in history in terms of fund raising. Yet it is up there with Boko Haram in depraved behaviour. Why the popularity? We in the west illegally attacked and occupied the middle east on false pretences. We committed continuous atrocities that even Hitler refused to use as too barbaric. It is our vets who are killing themselves with shame at what they did. We should not be surprised that we prepared the conditions to spawn a terrorist group that believes the west is so evil that nothing is off the table in seeking revenge. Our behaviour convinced them we are supernaturally evil. We in the west should start thinking about how to recover our reputation in the world as the best protection from global terrorism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Creating Terrorists

Recipe to create a terrorist: take one idealistic young man, lock him into an apartheid system where there is no future, imprison and torture his father, rape his mother and sister then napalm his little brother with a twist of white phosphorous. What puzzles me is why there are so many self-styled warriors against terrorism working so hard to create more terrorists.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Crime of the Millennium

Americans beat the crap out of tiny Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which had anything at all to do with 2001-09-11. Even Bush claims the culprits were Saudi. This is crime that will be remembered for millennia. There is no way America can indefinitely escape reprisal. The more Americans torture, rape, plunder and murder the worse the revenge will eventually be. The fools imagine the crueler they are, the safer they are. They are using the failed shock and awe strategy that Hitler attempted.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Crimean Crime

Putin illegally invaded the Crimea and forced upon the residents a referendum where they had two choices:

The choice not on the ballot was:

This is the sort of stunt Hitler pulled of prior to WWII when he was hassling gays much as Putin does now. Every member of the UN (United Nations) signed a treaty not to invade other countries and to refuse to put up with other counties doing so. But of course they do nothing. Why? Might makes right, same as when those same countries looked the other way when the USA illegally invaded Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Criminal Vilifies Those Who Refuse to Join Him

The way Americans vilified the French when France refused to join the USA in the illegal invasion and plunder of Iraq reminds me of the way a drug addict turns on then sheds his friends who try to warn him of the dangers of his lifestyle.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cronkite the Happy Killer

I saw some old news footage of Walter Cronkite in Viet Nam. He took off in a jet that dropped bombs killing a few dozen Viet Namese children. Cronkite was exhilarated. All he could think about was the G forces he experienced in the dive to bomb. It never crossed his mind he just killed more children than the most notorious paedophiles on the planet. If Cronkite can be this callous, what can we expect of the drops outs that form most of the armed forces?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cross Medals

It is no accident that military medals are often made in the shape of a cross. This is part of the propaganda to convince soldiers that killing people, just because they were ordered to, is a holy undertaking.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Crusaders

If the Muslim nations of the earth sent large armies into the Christian countries, slaughtered entire cities to the last man, woman and child, including Muslims living there who had been contaminated by contact with Christians, what would we call these armies? When we did it, we called them crusaders. To this day we use the word crusade for any noble, difficult, world-changing enterprise. Bush-43 also used it to characterise the invasion of Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cuba Missile Crisis

I clearly remember the Cuba missile crisis that started on 1962-10-14. I was only 14 years and 8 months old at the time. We had a drill a short time earlier of the new nuclear warning sirens to practice going home to die. I could not see the point. At the height of the crisis, the nuclear warning sirens went off. I turned on the radio to get news. It was dead. My three sisters and I started to wail We are all going to die. My Dad shouted angrily at us to shut up that there must be some logical explanation. I made my bed and went out to sit on a giant granite hill in the front yard. From there I had a spectacular view of the city of Vancouver and the harbour. I waited for the nuclear flash. It did not come. It turned out moisture had some how shorted the warning system. Fuck you Kennedy and your bloated ego!

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cuban History

The Bay of Pigs invasion was on 1961-04-17. The Cuban Missile Crisis started on 1962-10-14. Americans don’t realise the two events were connected and their own actions had a lot to do with precipitating the crisis. The Russians believed they had to defend Cuba, a soviet bloc country, from more US invasions. Further, the Americans had installed missiles in Turkey pointed at the USSR. The Soviets were attempting parity. P.S. One of the reasons the Bay of Pigs invasion failed was the CIA used a map drawn in the 1800s. It showed a beach that was actually a mangrove swamp.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 was by far the most terrifying event of my life. The world escaped nuclear war only because a Soviet submarine captain refused orders to fire his nuclear weapons. Oddly, as the cold war thawed, the USA stepped up its blockade on Cuba. In 1992 the Torricelli act made it illegal for a ship to dock in the USA for 160 days after docking in Cuba. In 1996 the Helms-Burton act sanctioned any country that traded with Cuba. On 2004-06-04 the USA allocated $59 million dollars for anti-Castro propaganda. To top it off, the US attempted to assassinate Castro over 600 times. Why is this? Today, Cuba presents little military threat to the USA. It can’t be that Castro is a dictator. The USA has happily supported hundreds of many other dictators throughout the world including the leaders of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Indonesia, the Philippines, Jordan, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Nicaragua, the Shah of Iran, Batista in pre-revolutionary Cuba, even Saddam Hussein in pre Gulf war Iraq… The reason is the USA wants to return to the way things were prior to 1959, when the USA picked the puppet dictators who ran Cuba for the benefit of the USA, treating it the way Britain used to exploit its colonies.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Custer’s Punishment

Custer’s strategy for taking lands from the Sioux was to kill everyone: men, women and children, no prisoners. He got off lightly, losing only his life, at Little Big Horn.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Danger of a Powerful Military

People who promote ever higher spending for the military may be motivated by greed or paranoia or a desire to plunder other countries. They forget the military is traditionally the group most likely to seize power in a coup. As the president, you have to make sure the power of the military is never allowed to become too unified. That is the main advantage of a separate army, navy, air force and marines.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Danger of Strong Personalities

Most historians put the blame for WWII on Hitler’s pathological personality. Perhaps we should avoid ever having a leader and elect groups to lead instead.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dangerous Delusions

Dangerous religious people are those who believe they cannot really die. They take murder and being killed far too lightly. If you allow such people access to nuclear weapons, it will be only a matter of time until they use them. We have to work to dismantle such crazy beliefs doing as little damage as possible to religious freedom.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Dark Side

Americans are so in denial of their dark side, that they pretend they are desperately fighting to defend America from enslavement both by Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the USA attacked both tiny countries unprovoked and illegally because they were not sufficiently compliant in handing over their oil and oil pipeline corridors.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Dark Side of M*A*S*H (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital)

I enjoyed M*A*S*H, especially the original Altman movie. However, it had a sinister side effect, making light of mindless murder and mayhem. The made it easier to sell the Afghan and Iraq wars. Yes, it damned war, but with the intensity one might damn those who let their dogs poo on your lawn.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Day 1 of the Iraq War

On 2003-03-20, the opening day of the Iraq war, I sat with some Iraqi expatriates and watched the USA bomb the residential sections of Baghdad on live video feed. They screamed and wailed as the apartment buildings of friends back home were reduced to rubble and friends inside were crushed to death before their eyes. If you are an American, you too probably remember that day, sitting with your friends, having a beer and chips and cheering the bomb hits as if they were a video game or a fireworks display. I see you as a decadent Roman emperor watching a blood spectacle for his entertainment. I find you an outrageous liar when you claim your soldiers do not kill children, when you personally spent hours watching them do it live.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dealing With Terrorism

We are having a terrible time with terrorism. Part of the problem is we are focussing on the symptoms rather than the causes. Unfortunately, the causes are illegal actions we took over a decade ago.

If someone had done even a small sampling of these things to you or your children, would you not vow undying revenge? Terrorism today is a direct consequence of our evil deeds over a decade ago. It is too late to undo our cruelty and greed. We are far from innocent. We will just have to muddle through.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Death Cult

When people join a death cult, first they are brainwashed, then they can kill repeatedly without thinking anything of it. The exact same thing happens to soldiers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Death Of Soldiers Does Not Matter

Consider a Syrian soldier shooting on his own people. Chances are he shares the same politics they do. What is with this dildobrain? He just does what he is told, no matter how asinine, crazy or evil it is. This soldier has abdicated his personhood. I don’t consider him human. He is a zombie. His death no longer matters.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Death Threats From Soldiers

Soldiers threaten to kill me because I don’t approve of them killing children or people who are no threat to their country. Why would they be so sensitive? Why do they care what some obscure old man in Canada thinks of them? It must be that deep inside they are deeply ashamed and they imagine the approval of a formerly disapproving parent figure like myself would erase the pain. Perhaps it is just I poke through their self-deception that what they are doing is right.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Debate With Hitch

This is an imaginary debate between myself and the late Christopher Hitchens:

Chris: Invading Iraq was the best idea George W. Bush ever had.
Roedy: That may well be true since Bush did not have any good ideas. However, invading Iraq was an illegal, idiotic idea.
Chris: So you want just let the Muslim horde take over? You can’t let dusty international law interfere with survival.
Roedy: If that was your intent, Iraq was a strange place to start, the most secular country in the middle east.
Chris: But Saddam was an odious monster. Did you want to just let him get away with it?
Roedy: Yes, he was a monster, but he was America’s monster. The CIA helped him into power. George Herbert Walker Bush sold Saddam the poison gas on credit that he used to gas the Kurds. George H.W. Bush’s friends in the cabinet owned the company that manufactured it. Getting rid of one man does not require invading an entire country.
Chris: But he had doubles. There was no way to pick just him off with a few bombs.
Roedy: You forget that Saddam offered to surrender on the eve of the invasion. If the goal were simply to get rid of him, would that not have been preferable to destroying the entire country?
Chris: You just made that up. He would never have surrendered. The war was about freedom for the Iraqis and about his nukes.
Roedy: Bush claimed Saddam had the ambiguous term WMDs which could have been just a canister of chlorine. Bush used the poetic term mushroom cloud which indicated he meant nukes. His only evidence was a from an anonymous alcoholic, code named Curveball, paid $40,000 a month to make up lurid tales that were never verified. Ambassador Joe Wilson (a Republican) and the Italians and French warned Bush that the documents supposedly proving Saddam was buying yellowcake from Niger were obvious fakes. France had bought up the entire production for years to come. Rumsfeld lied that he knew the exact location of Saddam’s nukes. Bush would not touch North Korea with a ten foot pole because they actually had nukes. The US army marched boldly into Iraq without any precautions. They clearly were not expecting any nukes.
Chris: Everybody knows there were tons of WMDs even if no one could find them. Saddam was smart. He just hid them. They were just for deterrence. He never dreamed of using them. The war was really about getting rid of Saddam and inaugurating an age of democratic freedom.
Roedy: If the war were truly about deposing Saddam, why did it not end when he was captured or hanged? There was not even a hiccup. It did not wind down until the day Obama announced the giant auction of all of Iraq’s oil reserves mainly to European oil companies. Ask anyone in the middle east. They will tell you that the war was about getting control of Iraq’s oil.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Decapitating a Random Dog

If people were as stupid as armies, when they got mugged, they would decapitate a random dog.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

For the longest time it was illegal it to display a photo of a coffin of a US soldier. Photos of soldiers of other countries was ok. Photos of non-soldiers was ok. Pictures of US soldier coffins, dead US soldiers, wounded US soldiers, even disabled US soldiers are extremely rare. If you post one, as I have done, you will get threats from US soldiers telling you they plan to beat you up or kill you. What’s this taboo all about?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Deciding Who Are the Good Guys

Did you ever wonder how people decide which side of a conflict has the moral correctness? Germans WWII believed the Nazis were the good guys. Americans believe America is 100% justified in its wars even though American attacked nations unprovoked such as Viet Nam, Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq, tore up the Geneva conventions, used banned weapons and used torture. They believe Americans are superior beings and any atrocity is justified to counter any threat, actual or potential. People are very primitive in how they decide. They do not analysis. They go with the home team, no matter how abominably it has behaved. Israelis think their invasion of Palestine and the apartheid police state they set up is fully justified. The Palestinians think that the suicide bombers are a legitimate tool to oust the invaders. Very rarely do you find someone who notices how badly their side is behaving. This even applied in the civil war where people picked sides mainly by geography.

Looked at objectively, America has behaved far worse that any terrorists. Terrorists kill in the 100s, sometimes 1000s. American kill and torture in the millions.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Decision Points

The president of the USA had decisions to make whether to continue the Iraq war or whether to end it.

  1. Decision to attack Iraq, which was first strike war, which is a war crime.
  2. Decision to reject Saddam’s offer of surrender.
  3. Decision to keep occupying Iraq even though Saddam was toppled.
  4. Decision to keep occupying Iraq even though Saddam was executed.
  5. Finally, the decision to pull out the very day Obama held a giant auction to sell off Iraq’s oil reserves to American and European oil interests. Mission accomplished.

It seems abundantly clear to me the war had nothing to do with Saddam, and everything to do with confiscating Iraq’s oil, the #2 reserves on the planet.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defeating Hitler

I find it so odd that Americans like Jerry Falwell say the main benefit of defeating Hitler is that we don’t speak German. Surely many other things are more important:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defeating ISIS

To defeat ISIS, mindlessly repeating what we have done unsuccessfully before will not work. We first need to understand the source of ISIS ’s strength. These sources include:

It is a bit late now to rescue America’s reputation. I can only think of two things they can do:

  1. Covertly promote the moderate Muslim groups all over the world who are also threatened by ISIS. They need tools to win the propaganda war that ISIS does not speak for Allah. The USA has no direct credibility in that debate.
  2. ISIS gets its money by selling oil. Even countries that don’t officially approve of ISIS are funding them by buying their oil. The long term solution is to reduce dependence on terrorist oil and replace it with green energy.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defeating Terrorists

I am impressed by the way the anti-terrorist people in the USA are almost always able to infiltrate terrorist groups and deflect attacks. The big failure was the original attack on the World Trade Center, where they infiltrated the group, but failed to replace the explosives with fakes. This suggests for any terrorist attack to succeed it must be done by a single person who tells no one what he is up to. It also makes me wonder if would-be terrorists would even make an attempt without infiltrators egging them on.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Defence Budget

The US defence budget is much larger than advertised. How could that be?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defence No Motive

In WWI and WWII, Canadian, American and British men enlisted motivated to protect their countries which were under attack. That motive does not apply to the Afghan war because we attacked them first and they have no means to invade us. (Even George W. Bush said that the Taliban had no rôle whatsoever in 2001-09-11.) So what possible motives could motivate men to enlist for the Afghan (or Iraq) wars?

  1. They like killing and/or torturing people.
  2. They like rape. They can rape men, women, children or animals without legal repercussions or public shame in Afghanistan.
  3. They are such losers, even Walmart or McDonald’s won’t hire them. The military is the employer of last resort.
  4. They have an conscious or unconscious suicide wish.
  5. They are motivated like Crusaders of old, by bigotry to exterminate anyone of the Islamic faith or a dark skin.
  6. The master/slave dominance/submission culture of the military turns them on something fierce.
  7. They are clinically paranoid and fear Afghan goat herders hiding in their closets.

Can you think of any others? With motivation like that, it is obscene that so many treat Afghan vets as equally heroic as those who served in WWI or WWII.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defending America

Reverend Al Sharpton called the SEALs (Navy Sea Air Lands) killed when the Taliban shot down A Chinook helicopter American heroes defending America. That is simply not true. America attacked Afghanistan, not the reverse. Afghanistan has no means to attack America. They fight with IED (Improvised Explosive Device) s, not battleships and bombers. Afghanistan had no part in 2001-09-11. That attack was illegal by both the Nuremberg principles and by a UN treaty. Anyone aiding or abetting the war is a war criminal guilty of a capital crime, hardly a hero.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defending Canada

Trump has announced the USA will no longer defend Canada in the event of a ballistic missile attack, reneging on the NATO treaty. If Canada acquired nuclear missiles, these would trigger Kim Jung Un to think of Canada as an enemy. They are ineffective against leaders who, perhaps for religious reasons, have no fear of nuclear war, such as Donald Trump, Kim Jong Il, ISIS, end times Christians… The slightest error using them could trigger a global thermonuclear war.

A system to shoot down incoming missiles does not have these problems. Unfortunately it is still experimental, and less than 0% successful.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defending Freedom

Soldiers may fool their mothers that they are heading off to butcher children in Afghanistan and Iraq to defend freedom whatever that means. But we all know why they are really doing it. They like bullying, torturing, raping and/or killing. If they indulge these desires at home they could end in prison. If they indulge them in Afghanistan or Iraq, they could get a medal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defending Freedom, My Ass!

Americans sling such bullshit! They claim they are pummeling Afghanistan and Iraq to defend American freedom. Yet in the 16 years and 6 months of Afghan war and the 15 years and 1 month of the Iraq war, neither country has launched even a single attack against the USA. And further, they made no attacks prior to the Americans illegally invading their countries. We all know the real reason for the war, but American pretend not to know. Obama auctioned off all of Iraq’s oil assets to American and European oil companies on the very day he announced the wind-down of the war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defending Freedom? What BS!

Every documentary about the US soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq invariably makes a preposterous claim that the soldiers are sacrificing the lives to protect the citizens of the USA and their freedom. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq has ever attacked the USA. Further, they have no means to do so. However, the USA has attacked them and pounded them mercilessly. The motivations of the soldiers have nothing whatsoever to do with defending freedom. That’s just the public excuse. They are about such things as:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defending ≠ Attacking

Americans make no distinction between the honour of soldiers who fought to defend the USA in WWII and those who attacked other nations unprovoked in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars to gain control of oil supplies.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Defensive and Aggressive War

Recruiting posters always talk of defending the homeland even when your country clearly attacked first and the other country is a small fraction the size of yours.

There are two kinds of wars:

  1. A war where your country is attacked.
  2. A war where your country attacked someone else.

Usually in the first type there is a draft and in the second there is not, though there was a draft for the Viet Nam war. There is a pressing need for young men to defend their country in the first sort of war. In the second, there is not. The first sort of war is legal; the second is not.

Why then do people enlist for the second type of war? They are obviously well aware they will be asked to bully, torture and kill children, women and men, so they could not have that big an objection to doing it.

These are just some of the good reasons to stay well away from such psychotic people as friends, lovers or spouses.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Definition of a Soldier

A soldier is a professional who hunts and kills humans of all ages and sexes. He is employed by a government. He is motivated primarily by sadism. A hit man is a professional killer who executes primarily criminals and business owners who refuse to pay protection. He is employed by organised crime. He is motivated primarily by money. The soldier is the more odious because of his choice of victim.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Definitions of Terrorism

Historian Caleb Carr defines terrorism as killing civilians with the intent of changing their political affiliation.

Steven Pinker defines terrorism as premeditated violence perpetrated by a non-state actor, against non-combatants (civilians or off-duty soldiers) in pursuit of a political, religious, or social goal, designed to coerce a government or to intimidate or convey a message to a larger audience.

The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) defines terrorism as the unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in the furtherance of political or social objectives. This definition includes three elements:

  1. Terrorist activities are illegal and involve the use of force.
  2. The actions are intended to intimidate or coerce.

The actions are committed in support of political or social objectives.

US law defines international terrorism as:

  1. involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;
  2. appear to be intended:
    1. to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
    2. to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
    3. to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
  3. occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum;

source

By all but Pinker’s definition, when US soldiers kill civilians, the soldiers too are terrorists. By all definitions when Afghans or Iraqis kill occupying US soldiers those are not acts of terrorism. The media use a definition like this. If we do it then it is not terrorism. If the people we are killing do it, then it is.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Delayed Bombs

What kind of sick puke would design a bomb/land mine/cluster bomb that would detonate 50 years after the war was over to kill children?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Delayed Realisation

It took 180 years for ordinary Americans to become aware of how badly their government had treated the Cherokee Indians of Georgia. How many more years will they hide from the truth about what their government did to the Afghan and Iraqi people?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Delayed Realisation

It was not until WWII was over did it dawn on the average German that they were the bad guys. In a similar way, it may take 40 years after the Afghan and Iraq wars end before Americans clue in they were the villains and the wars they fought were illegal and fought for shameful motives.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Delayed Revenge

Arabs have a culture of keeping grudges over generations. They are honour bound to seek revenge. Americans will forget what they did to the Iraqis when they leave, but the Iraqis will not. The revenge may not come until 70 years from now.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Deliberately Blind Americans

I feel such fury and revulsion at Americans every time I watch the news. They are deliberately blind to the fact their wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are illegal and hence all who participate are war criminals guilty of a capital crime. They blind themselves to the fact the people in Iraq and Afghanistan hate them with a passion because the Americans have occupied for so long after promising to liberate, imposed corrupt dictators, tortured, used banned weapons and killed their wives and children. Americans are so conceited they pretend to themselves they are loved as benefactors bringing the gift of democracy. It is not democracy if you shove it down somebody’s throat.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Delusions

On 2011-09-07, I heard a young lady on KUOW NPR (National Public Radio) who said she was much wiser now and had new respect for US soldiers seeking revenge for 2001-09-11.

She had it right the first time. Even President Bush claimed the 2001-09-11 attackers were Saudi (including bin Laden). The Afghans and Iraqis had nothing to do with it. There is nothing honourable about torturing the dog because the cat peed on the sofa. Further, even if they had done it, is not 16 years, 7 months and 25 days sufficient revenge for an attack that took only a few hours? This is obsessive. The USA has gone mad, abandoning the Geneva conventions, using banned weapons, torturing, targeting children (blindly bombing residences which are usually occupied by mostly children)… They have become more depraved than the 2001-09-11 terrorists.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dense Americans

How dense can Americans be. They watch those whose countries they occupy committing suicide just to help throw the invaders out and still Americans imagine their yoke beneficial, light and pleasant. They explain that when Hitler invaded unprovoked and plundered nations for natural resources, it was very bad, but claim when Americans do exactly the same thing, it must, by definition, be saintly. American shit does not stink.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dense Americans

I can’t get over how dense Americans are. They attacked and occupied two countries, torturing and in every possible way shredding the Geneva conventions. Yet they are utterly astonished that anyone would seek revenge for this. In a war, both sides try to hurt each other. What is so difficult to understand?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Deserving Pain

In a war, soldiers often experience unbearable pain from injuries or torture. Most of the time they fully deserved this. They enlisted because they wanted to inflict just such unbearable pain on others.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Despise Soldiers

The military spends millions selling a sanitised view of war where soldiers are noble warriors bravely defending their country. Soldiers have not had to defend the USA, Canada, Britain, France… against attack since WWII. If people could actually see what soldiers do, if they could hear the soldiers talk to each other as they kill, they would hate them and despise them with just as much vehemence as they hate other serial killers and sadistic child-raping pukes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Destroying Democracy

Hitler justified destroying democracy, rule of law and constitutional protections by fanning paranoia about Jewish secret organisations. The US military does the same thing with Al-Qaeda.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Deteriorating Nukes

The US nuclear arsenal was built presuming it would be upgraded in 10 to 20 years later. However, here we are 50 years later and fungus is literally growing on the old equipment. The US and Russia still have nuclear missiles trained on each other, for no good reason.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Deterring Terrorists

The cheapest way to deter terrorist attacks is to stop committing atrocities. Americans have this notion that they are innocent victims of irrational religious violence. They refuse to acknowledge that they commit most of the theft, torture and killing in the world. Whatever happens to the USA is token retribution.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Detesting Soldiers

I feel more kindly toward fire ant queens than I do soldiers, male or female, who breed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dexter

In the TV series Dexter, the lead character captures serial killers and straps them to a table so they cannot move. He then gets them to understand the depth of their crimes and then kills them. Dexter never went after a military serial killer, but it would have been satisfying to watch him crush their lame denials of wrong doing and evil intent.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dichotomous Thinking

If you ever suggest to a Republican it might be better two reduce military spending they will inevitably say We can’t just lower our defences and let everyone walk all over us. This is what psychiatrists call dichotomous either-or thinking. Reducing is not the same as eliminating. Republicans cannot grab the notion that in any spending, including military spending, there is such a thing as too little and also too much.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dick Cheney on Trial

Dick Cheney has a weak heart so he will likely die peacefully in bed. This is too bad. He has publicly confessed to a number of capital war crimes, but, as a psychopath, he feels no remorse or guilt. He deserves a trial where he will no longer be able to deny his malice. Such a trial would also be important for ordinary Americans who are deluded that, as Americans, they are immune from international law.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Difference between Afghanistan and WWII

What is difference between the Afghan war and WWII? Why so much more PTSD this time? Why is it so much more crippling?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Difference between a Serial Killer and a Soldier

What’s the difference between serial killers who enlist to kill children in Iraq and those that kill them back home in the USA? The ones that do it is Iraq get paid to. The ones that do it back home risk arrest by the American justice system. The ones that do it in Iraq risk arrest by the International justice system. Americans hold parades to honour the perverts who kill in Iraq and spit on the graves of those who kill them in America. Why such a difference? Racism. Iraqi children don’t count as human to the American heart.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Difference between a Serial Killer and a Soldier

What’the difference between a serial killer and a US soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan? We hold a parade for the soldier to celebrate his kills. The serial killer gets a lethal injection.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Difference between a Serial Killer and a Soldier

What’the difference between a US soldier and a serial killer and in Afghanistan or Iraq? The soldier gets paid.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Difference between The USA And Israel

Both the USA and Israel are bullies. Both believe that might makes right. Both are arrogant. Both thumb their noses at international law. Both are unbelievably conceited claiming to be God’s chosen people/master race. The difference is the Israelis are brazen about their perfect selfishness where the Americans pretend their actions are motivated by pure beneficence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Disadvantages of Soldiering

Soldiering has many extreme negative consequences including:

  1. PTSD.
  2. Brain damage.
  3. Being shot.
  4. Exposure to chemicals that harm the lungs causing lung cancer or emphysema.
  5. Loss of hands, arms, feet, legs, genitals, nose, ears…
  6. Exposure to radiation.
  7. Accidental exposure to banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants).
  8. Being blown up by an IED.
  9. Being killed.
  10. Being turned into a vegetable who can’t feed himself or wipe his bum.

Why would any sane person put that much at risk? I can think of only two circumstances:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Disagreement

Most Americans and I have a strong disagreement. I think they should not kill people who are no threat to them (the Afghans and Iraqis) and they think they should. But the odd thing is these hawkish Americans often threaten to beat me up or kill me. Why are they afraid of me?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Disarmament Strategy

Consider some weapon system, e.g. poison gas, nukes, bioweapons… There are both advantages and disadvantages to stocking that weapon.

If you unilaterally disarm, without concern for what the other guy does, without concern for verification, you have pulled out one major psychological advantage for your adversary to arming. If he in turn also reduces his stockpiles, he still gets all the advantages and reduces the disadvantages. There is no negotiation or verification required. This means when a bolt of sanity strikes any party in the conflict, they can make major progress right away.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Disband the Snowbirds

The Snowbirds are a Canadian military aeronautic acrobatic team. I would like to see them disbanded for a number of reasons:

  1. Their shows are intended to turn on young boys and make them yearn to pilot such machines and drop bombs on innocent people.
  2. They terrify little old ladies. One came rushing toward me convinced we were under attack.
  3. They take risk by doing acrobatics over cities. They have no right to put those people’s lives at risk.
  4. They waste huge amounts of fuel and emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases.
  5. They make a huge racket that brings work to a standstill in the city they attack.
  6. They are a huge expense to the taxpayer without practical function. They are a frill. The government has no business putting on circus acts at taxpayer expense.

At the very least, the shows should be held in rural areas far away from any city.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Disgusting Americans

I find Americans the most despicable people on the planet. They know perfectly well the USA invaded Afghanistan, unprovoked, not the reverse. They know perfectly well the USA invaded Iraq, unprovoked, not the reverse. They know the USA stole Iraq’s oil. Yet nearly all Americans persist in the monstrous lie those wars were to protect American freedoms. This is the sort of big lie I would have expected from Hitler. It is a dark chapter in American history. Americans brazenly lie to deny it. The soldiers killed millions of innocent people including children who never harmed the USA. These racist bastards are claiming it was all in self-defence. Sometimes they try to pretend the wars were in retaliation for 9/11. They know perfectly well Afghanistan and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush himself said it was Saudis (whom he helped escape the country during the lockdown).

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Disgusting Americans, Canadian and British Child killers

Afghan child burned in a NATO bombing Disgust is far too gentle a word I feel for the citizens of the USA, Canada and Britain who have been illegally bombing and occupying Afghanistan for 16 years, 6 months and 30 days. When the citizens debate whether to continue tormenting the Afghans who did nothing to harm the NATO countries and further have no means to, the only issue citizens consider is Can we win? They almost never ask themselves deeper questions like:

Since almost no one asks these questions and no politician ever answers them, I must presume the answers are shameful. What is it that motivates us?

  1. We treat the war like an Olympic speed-skating event. We just can’t stand the shame of being held to a stalemate by a country much smaller and poorer than us, especially since we have the help of the largest and most advanced military on the planet. We we are butchering kids in the name of stubborn national pride.
  2. We want a share of the spoils — Afghanistan’s lithium and Iraq’s oil.
  3. We Canadians and Britons are cowards. We do it only because the Americans tell us to.
  4. In North America, we manufacture almost nothing but weapons, so the war is just a cynical make-work program to pay off arms makers who bribe politicians and to create make-work jobs that don’t actually need doing.
  5. We are bigots and sadists who love the idea of torturing Muslim children.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dishonourable Iraq War

Many Americans are now aware of how dishonourable the Iraq war is. It was an illegal, unprovoked first strike. The evidence to justify it was either counterfeit or made up out of whole cloth. It was actually an oil heist, now complete. On the very day Obama announced the Iraq troop withdrawals there was a giant auction of all of Iraq’s oil reserves to American and European oil companies.

However, very few Americans are aware that between the Gulf War and Iraq wars, in the Sanction Bombings, the USA bombed Iraq every day, destroying nearly all of Iraq’s sewage plants, electric plants, water treatment plants, schools, hospitals… all in flagrant violation of the Geneva conventions. America claimed self defence as justification even though no American planes were ever hit and no soldiers were ever killed or injured. Between one and two million Iraqis died as a result, many as a result of water borne illness such as cholera. You could argue this was a form of bio-warfare.

Even fewer Americans are aware of the Glaspie incident in 1990. Kuwait and Iraq were having a dispute. They were each slant-drilling into the other’s territory and siphoning off the oil. Iraq asked America’s ambassador Glaspie would it would do if Iraq attacked Kuwait. Glaspie said it would be considered an internal Arab matter and America would not intervene. As we know, she lied. As soon as Iraq attacked Kuwait, the USA rushed to its aid and has been pounding the shit out of Iraq ever since. It appears then that Bush-41 tricked Iraq to give it an excuse to attack Iraq and gain control of its oil. If I were an American, I would be ashamed of my country for such treachery. If Bush-41 had been honest and said it would rush to Kuwait’s aid, the Gulf war would have been completely avoided.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Distrust Politicians

Long after a war is over, we find out the government tricked the people into it with lies, all the while pretending they were reluctantly being forced into it. We are like Charlie Brown and the football. You’d think by now we would distrust governments by default.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Divine Intervention on 2001-09-11

It will take some Muslim writing a book about 2001-09-11 where he ascribes the thousands of improbabilities that favoured the terrorists in Bush’s story to Allah’s divine intervention. People will then read the book to discredit it and discover that Bush’s story was indeed full of holes. They will likely come to the conclusion that the real explanation for the anomalies has nothing to do with Allah and a lot to do with Bush being a compulsive liar.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Divine Right of Obama

Astounding as it sounds, according to Salon.com and the New York Times, Obama issued an executive order allowing him to authorise the assassination of any American citizen, without trial, without evidence, far from any battle field. This is a throwback to the divine right of kings.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Do Vets Deserve Medical Care?

Given that all the vets of the Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars committed a capital war crime, namely aiding and abetting a aggressive (first strike, unprovoked) war, you could make an argument they don’t deserve free medical care. On the other hand, nearly every American citizen egged these moral and mental defectives on to commit that crime and promised they would support the troops. Now they want to renege on that promise.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Documentary Idea

Both humans and chimps make war on other groups. It would be instructive if somebody made a movie, cutting back and forth between scenes of human and chimp warfare, but playing the chip sound track to accompany the human warfare and vice versa to show how primitive, brutal and idiotic the whole business is.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The DOD (Department Of Defence) is really the Department of Offense

If the DOD were truly about defence, you would expect to see the bulk of American weapons arrayed in a ring around the continental USA, but they aren’t. They are deployed over the entire globe. Why? Because they are for offence (including intimidation), not defence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Don’t Marry A Soldier

If you know someone dating or planning to marry a military man, you might be able to save them extreme misery by sending them to read my essay on why you should not marry a soldier.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday clock is closer to midnight even than it was in the bellicose days of Ronald Reagan.

Both Democrats and Republicans want to increase defence spending, particularly on nukes. Obama has already authorised a trillion dollar increase in nuke spending. The defence industry is powerful, completely without morality, driven totally by profit. No politician dares cross them. This is crazy. The USA already spends more on the military than all the other countries of the world combined.

I live in Victoria, a small Canadian city. It is unlikely my city will be directly targeted. That means my death will be slower from a combination of radiation poisoning, particulates in the air and social collapse. I would rather be instantly vapourised like the citizens of Washington DC.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Double Standard

American soldiers complain that the Iraqi and Afghan resistance fight with IED. They consider this cheating since the attacker can attack from far away. These same soldiers fail to notice Americans also fight from a distance with high altitude bombers, snipers who can pick people off from 4.83 km (3 miles) away, banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants).

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Double Standard

Note how North Americans have a double standard about showing the atrocities of war:

Double Standard
Event If Victim is American If Victim is Muslim
torture
corpse
killing from a distance
injured child
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Downside of Inventing New Weapons

Every new weapon you invent will eventually be used against you. Don’t expect your enemies to honour your patents.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Downsides Of Drones

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Draft Cools Wars

The reason the Afghan and Iraq wars have dragged on so long is because there is no draft. The reason there is no draft is because the wars are fought roughly 50% with contractors, most of whom are not American. In other words, Americans are happy to butcher third worlders for oil so long as too many of their own don’t die in the process.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Drinking the Poison

America has embraced the Republican philosophy of selfishness, greed, contempt for the environment and immediate gratification. It has voluntarily drunk the poison and now must die with the consequences.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Drone Effectiveness

90% of the people killed by drones were not the target. Could you imagine if 90% of the people strapped into the electric chair were the wrong guy? The military needs to get its act together so it kills precisely the people it intends to.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Drone Pilot Slang

Funsized terrorists
US drone pilot slang for child victims.
tits
terrorists in training. US drone pilot slang for child victims.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Drones

90% of drone strikes do not kill the intended target, even when the military considers all military age males in the strike zone as automatic targets.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Drones

I think the future of American and Canadian aggressive warfare will go to the drone.

  1. The pilot is completely safe, sitting in a bunker on the other side of the world.
  2. The plane is cheaper to build.
  3. The plane can accelerate faster than a human can withstand.
  4. Fat couch potatoes can pilot them.
  5. Being smaller, the plane can be quieter and harder to detect. They can be made in a wide variety of sizes.
  6. They can more precisely pinpoint the precise victim or family. They can be thought of as assassination weapons.
  7. They terrorise the population, much the way Nazi buzz bombs terrorised London in WWII.

I think the future of warfare against America and Canada will use terrorism.

  1. There is no simple target to retaliate against.
  2. It can strike anywhere at any time.
  3. It costs almost nothing for the attacker and is cripplingly expensive to defend against.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Drones

The US military assures us drone strikes are precise. By that they mean 10% of the casualties are not the intended target. Their thinking is, any in the vicinity of a bad guy deserves to die, including infants.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Drones Mean Killing Kids

According to Code Pink 10% of the casualties in WWII were civilians. In Iraq it is 90%. With Predator drones it is 99%. Further, in Iraq, about 50% of civilians are under 15. So when you kill blindly with Predators American controlling them half a world away in Las Vegas are killing mostly children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Drooling Idiot Americans

Americans bleat piteously that the Taliban treated them with less that welcoming arms. I wonder how the Americans would treat the Taliban if they invaded and occupied America, killed millions of people, used banned weapons, tortured, raped, dismissed the president, congress and senate and appointed an interim dictator they deemed appropriate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dumb Soldiers

Soldiers are some of the densest people you will ever encounter. It is as if they all had frontal lobotomies. They insist they never kill anyone, just protect themselves in self-defence. They even deny they are hired killers. (It would be preposterous for a country to send its soldiers just to get shot at. They could keep them at home much more cheaply with the same effect.) They kill children, but excuse themselves on the grounds they did not really mean to kill the kids. They napalm a house full of kids, but excuse themselves on the grounds they did not really wish the kids harm. What bullshit rationalisation! With that kind of logic they could assassinate the president claiming they were just trying the kill the rose bugs. They talk only to each other, and manage to convince each other that atrocities that would make a Nazi blush are perfectly OK, including actions that are patently illegal (aggressive war, Geneva convention violations, banned weapons, torture…) They hook up with psychotic women who get off on their crimes and egg them on, much like the women attracted to serial killers on death row. There is no lower form of life than a soldier. No only has he sold his soul, he has sold his conscience.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dumber than Dinosaurs

Americans are nowhere near as intelligent as dinosaurs. How so? Americans spend trillions fretting about 100 unarmed Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan who have vowed revenge for Americans killing millions of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet Americans refuse to do anything about global warming which will utterly obliterate the USA by the end of this century. Dinosaurs ruled 159 million years and were wiped out by an asteroid, something they could no nothing about. Americans will rule at most 550 years and will die by their own premeditated suicidal acts to deliberately bring on global warming.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Eager to Kill

On 2011-02-04 I saw a documentary by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Fifth Estate on Wikileaks. One of the videos they showed was the audio and video of American soldiers eagerly killing Iraqi civilians from a helicopter as if they were shooting ducks. It was utterly nauseating perhaps the most revolting thing I have ever seen. The men exhibited the jumpy excitement of dogs eager to mount a bitch. Every American soldier should commit suicide in shame to be associated with an organisation that orchestrates such behaviour. Soldiers brag to each other about how many people they have killed that day. They are as sick as any serial killers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Effect of Targeting Civilians

Osama bin Laden worried that targeting civilians would drive support away from Al Qaeda. This would apply to any terrorist organisation or country.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Elimination of Smallpox

One of the great triumphs of medicine was the elimination of smallpox from planet earth. But military people keep stockpiles of it to use as a weapon. Don’t they have enough ways to kill people already? Why risk one that if it accidentally or maliciously got out could turn back the clock to the middle ages? A weapon should be something you can control. Smallpox is not.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Encouraging Nuclear Proliferation

George W. Bush, in his axis of evil speech on 2002-01-29 transcript, announced America’s plans to annihilate Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Reputedly, all three then sought to acquire nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Only North Korea succeeded. The USA indeed backed from down attacking North Korea after it demonstrated its ICBMs. What is the world to learn from this? If the USA threatens you, (perhaps only because you have oil or other valuable natural resources) your only hope is to acquire nukes. This is hardly a good American strategy for nuclear non-proliferation.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

End of Democracy

The usual way a democracy ends is when the military gets too powerful and takes over. They have the weapons. They have the people brainwashed into doing what they are told no matter how obviously wrong it is.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

End of the Jock Soldier

The days of the square-jawed, muscular soldier cretin are numbered. War is becoming is being fought more and more with remote-controlled technology.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

End Of War Conditions

What would it take for the Americans to consider that they had won sufficiently in Afghanistan?

The Americans have rigged things so they cannot win. They have set things up so that have to fight endlessly for the profit of GE, Halliburton, Xe (née Blackwater) etc. Corporations are happy to have the war proceed forever. It saves the profit disruption required to start new wars should the public get too tired of the Afghan and Iraq wars.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Endemic Cruelty

Most educated people know the ancient Romans tortured and killed people for their amusement. They know of the cruelties of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the Spanish Inquisition and Vlad the Impaler. They know how the Germans and Japanese treated prisoners in WWII. They know how ordinary Germans persecuted Jews in WWII. They know about Das Experiment, The Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in 1971 that discovered ordinary American college students would turn sadistic if given power over another group of students. They know Rwandans slaughtered each other for no reason other than the victim belonged to the other tribe. Americans know their president authorised torture, secret torture dungeons, the use of banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). Americans know their military stockpiles a wide assortment of plagues to use as biological weapons including genetically enhanced ones to make them more horrible. Given the widespread flowering of cruelty in the human race, it should be clear it an essential feature of humanity. No group is immune, in particular soldiers. Yet Americans have a sort of religious reference for soldiers and refuse to even admit the possibility they could behave in a sadistic way, no matter how much evidence piles up.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ending a Fight

You can use weapons of war to punish an attacker and thus convince them to call off an attack. However, you can’t use them to break up a fight. To do that, you need to starve both parties of the resources to fight.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ending Wars

Americans talk at is if would take at least two or three years to wind down either the Afghan or Iraq war. Huh? The much larger WWI and WWII hostilities ended overnight.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Endless War

When I was a little boy, adults told me about the Korean war. I got the idea Korea was a place where they held an endless war where anyone could go who wanted to play soldier. Come to think of it, that is a fairly good description of Afghanistan.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Enemies vs Victims

Americans use the term enemies in an unusual way. They refer to Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran as enemies, even though these nations have not attacked the USA. The USA attacked them unprovoked to steal oil and other natural resources. That is a bit like a mugger calling his mark an enemy. Most people would call them victims, not enemies.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Entitlement Delusions

Jews think they have the right to steal the Palestinian’s homeland because of what Hitler did to them. Americans think they have right to invade any country they please and take their oil and minerals because of what happened to them on 9-11. It is rare to find an Israeli or American who is not fully possessed by this entitlement delusion.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Escalation

Many species of animals, including humans will kill each other in territorial disputes. The catch is humans keep developing ever more destructive weapons. If we don’t either on top of our urge to escalate the lethality of weapons or our ant-like territoriality, we are doomed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Escalation of Abuse

Atrocity is incremental. It starts with verbal abuse, bullying, slapping and gradually works its way up. Like most problems, it is easier to stop in its early stages.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Escaping Blame

When an arsonist burns down a nursing home, did he intend to kill the elderly inside? He would claim no. To him, killing them was just a side effect of producing a pretty blaze. I would say yes because he was well aware they would not be able to escape. In a similar way, American generals claim they don’t intentionally kill civilians. Yet I have seen with my own eyes US forces dropping bombs on apartment buildings and mosques. The generals claim they were trying to kill armed resistors, yet clearly they killed more children, women and elderly since they outnumber the targets in the general population. The generals play these word games to make it sound as if they only rarely kill civilians. Hitler could have excused himself the same way for his rocket attacks on London.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Essential Soldier

The essential character of the soldier comes clear when discipline breaks down, such as in the Congo where soldiers rape women and then poke sticks and guns in their vaginas to destroy the wall between the vagina, uterus and rectum leaving them in pain and incontinent for life.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Eternal Shame

In the time of Lyndon Johnson, Americans protested en masse against the pointless Viet Nam war. In the time of George W. Bush, Americans grumbled, but quietly acquiesced as Bush started two illegal aggressive wars, mocked the world court, laughed at the Geneva conventions, abrogated the constitution and routinely tortured P.O.W.s. Electing Obama no more wipes that shame from America than the death of Hitler wipes the stain from Nazi Germany. Further, though Obama is gradually shutting down one unwinnable war, he is escalating the other.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Evaluating America

When I was a kid I wanted to be American because Superman and the Lone Ranger were. I slept with my feet pointing south. Three of my partners have been Americans. However, since 2001-09-11 I have come to hold a very dim view of the USA. They started two prolonged wars on the flimsiest of pretexts, but what burned me up is there was almost no protest. Americans affect the trappings of patriotism but refuse to defend the constitution with even token protest. They refuse to get off the pot with greenhouse gas emissions, with the excuse I dont wanna. It might cost me some money.”. A people who refuse to make even the tiniest sacrifice for future generations have lost their way morally. They deserve extinction.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Evolution of Warfare

Deer hunters attach their licence to kill to the carcass with a tag that can be tightened, but not loosened or removed without breaking it. The evolution of warfare works in a similar way. Every step of evolution makes war cheaper, more lethal, more convenient, more terrifying, more brutal… However, it is only a matter of time until the everyone has the new technology. You can evolve further but never go back. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. So war inexorably gets more efficient and terrible over time. All we can control is how quickly this happens. People imagine war research makes them safer, but, in actuality, it just brings closer the day when war is so efficient it drives the entire human species extinct. This eventually happens to every technological civilisation. Scientists say this is probably why we have had so much trouble finding any other intelligent life in the universe.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Evolution of Weapons

You can go back 20,000 years, and trace history to the present day, you will see weapons evolving, first slowly and then faster and faster. Now we have weapons where even a single person can destroy all live on earth. The USA spends more on weapons and weapons research than social programs, education, health care etc combined. Every new weapon brings us closer to Armageddon. We are crazy species determined to go extinct as soon as possible. If we don’t do it with weapons, we will do it with climate change or environmental destruction. We are like babies who have commandeered the family car, and are driving it faster and faster, oblivious to the danger.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Exaggerating the Threat of Iraq

The USA and Iraq are as mismatched combatants as Mike Tyson and a bag lady. Americans make themselves look ridiculous when they justify invading and occupying Iraq in self-defence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excessive Mourning

If someone mourns for over a decade for a loved one, builds multiple monuments and memorials and makes semi-annual pilgrimages to the death site, we might say to them, This is unhealthy. Get on with your life. Your dead loved ones would not want you obsessing like this. Yet we encourage just this sort of behaviour with 2001-09-11. I think what motivates some of those behind these memorials are racists who want to fan the flames of hatred for all Muslims.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excuse to End War

Let’s say somebody blew the legs off a 5 year old in your extended family, or blew your grandmother’s head with a high-powered rifle, or turned your brother-in-law to splatter with a cluster bomb. It not just the victims that suffer. The relatives carry the pain the rest of their lives. That violence creates spiral of revenge and hate. President Obama is reputed to be an unusually intelligent man, but he is a nitwit when it comes to war. He thinks he need an excuse to put an end to it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excuses to Attack First

Like Nazis and Israelis, Americans believe have a holy right to attack others unprovoked, on the grounds they guess the other county might, in future, develop the ability to attack them. This is like pleading self-defence for feeding your neighbour to a wood chipper because you thought he might next summer buy some archery gear and threaten you with it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excuses to Avoid the Draft

I find it odd that one cannot avoid military service for the following sensible reasons:

However, you can avoid it by claiming you believe an invisible, imaginary man up in the sky will torture you after you are dead if you participate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excuses of a Child Rapist

When a man volunteers to rape, torture and kill children and women, I don’t believe him when he offers some vague noble-sounding excuse like defending freedom. We all know darn well he would have done it for any excuse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excuses for Killing

Soldiers often offer lame excuses for enlisting and going to Afghanistan or Iraq to butcher children who were no threat to anyone. Commonly they whine they were having trouble finding work. They refuse to acknowledge that not only is killing kids morally reprehensible, it is illegal. Aiding an abetting an aggressive (first strike) war is a capital crime. Their excuse is even less valid than had Nazi soldiers used it. There is no gun forcing Canadian or Americans to enlist. The could have made more money in the Mafia or a drug gang. At least then they would be killing and torturing children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excuses for Nukes

Can you think of any principle other than might makes right that would justify the USA, Britain, India, Pakistan etc. clinging to nuclear weapons and refusing inspections, when they block other nations from getting them and demand they submit to surprise inspections to make sure they don’t.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excuses for Sadism

Men like killing for the sexual pleasure of it. They make up the most preposterous childish silly excuses for it. Excuses have included self-defence (even when the killers attacked first unprovoked), my religion is better than yours, we need more room, God gave us title to your land, your leader ran off with our leader’s wife, we need to teach you to treat women more chivalrously, my economic system is better than yours, you would rather not be part of our country any more.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Excusing the Soldiers

In the aftermath of Robert Bales confessing to butchering 9 Afghan children and 7 adult civilians as they slept, Americans are eager to forgive their troops for any atrocities they committed. They want to put the blame 100% on the politicians. This is much like Nazi soldiers excusing themselves after WWII by claiming I vas chust following zee orders. Nuremberg settled the matter once and for all that this excuse does not wash. Further, the American soldiers volunteered with eyes wide open to go kill Afghan and Iraqi children. They were not drafted. They knew full well what they would be ordered to do. They were eager to kill. They knew full well neither Afghanistan nor Iraq attacked the USA and had to means to do so. They knew the USA was the aggressor. They might not have fully understood that attack was illegal, or that aiding an abetting either war was a capital offence, but ignorance of the law is no excuse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Executions

China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, United States, Iraq, Viet Nam. Why is the USA on this list of disreputable countries? The USA is #5 in executions, just behind North Korea. Executing this many people may satisfy a desire for revenge, but it clearly does not work to reduce murders.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Exit Strategy

There was no exit strategy for Iraq because the Cheney/Bush administration never planned to leave. Why would they leave before all the oil and gas were gone? The trillion dollar plus investment in gaining control of the oil would make no sense if Americans just handed it back to Iraq. Obama announced the phased withdrawal from Iraq on the same day he announced the auction of all of Iraq’s oil resources where the invited buyers were American and European oil companies.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Expert or Amateur: Which is the Real Al Qaeda?

If it were Al Qaeda that successfully pulled off 2001-09-11, the most intricate terrorist attack of all time without any inside help, as George W. Bush asserts, why has every Al Qaeda attack since has been embarrassingly amateurish and incompetent? You’d think they would get better with practice.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Explosives in Surgery

Whenever the American military talk about surgical strikes I wonder how you would remove a breast tumor with a 50 kg (110.23 lbs) bomb without killing the patient and everyone else in the room.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Extending DADT (Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell)

Imagine if don’t ask don’t tell applied to blacks. They could serve in the military only if they bleached their skin and straightened their hair. Or Jews if they pretended to worship Jesus, or women if they taped their breasts and shaved their hair.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Exterminating the Buffalo

General Sherman orchestrated a program to slaughter all the buffalo in the USA because they wanted to destroy the food supply of the native people.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Extinction of Alpha Males

To America’s eternal shame, they systematically exterminated the black alpha males during reconstruction.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Extraditing bin Laden

Shortly after 9/11 Bush demanded that Afghanistan extradite bin Laden to the USA. There were some problems with this:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Faces of Sadists

Belgian soldiers torturing a Somali boy Belgian UN troops forced a young Somali to eat pork (extreme Islamic taboo), drink salt water and then eat his own vomit. Others roasted a Somali boy over a flaming fire and urinated on a murdered Somali. These are Belgians, not Nazis, Russians or Americans. Belgians are the people who perfected chocolate and pommes frite. Why did these Belgian soldiers do this? Look at the glee on the face of the soldier on the left in the photo. These men are sadists. They enlisted for opportunities to humiliate and hurt people. There no possible motive of self-defence. Belgium is not under attack and if it were, the entire EU would race to its defence. This same sadism is the reason young Americans enlisted for the Afghan and Iraq wars. It is the same reason no sane young woman (or man) should consider marrying a soldier of any nationality.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Failed Reconstruction

In the Peter Sellers comedy The Mouse That Roared, the tiny Duchy of Grand Fenwick provoked the USA to attack, hoping the money pouring in for reconstruction after they lost would rescue their crumbling finances. If that logic were true, Afghanistan should be rolling, however, it is now the poorest country in Asia, behind even North Korea and Myanmar.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Failure Analysis

History and historical documentaries study ancient battles from the point of view of a general, wondering how the mayhem could have been more effectively administered. I would like to study them from the point of view of studying the crash of an airliner. What failures of social structures made it impossible to avoid the war, with the end to preventing future crashes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Failure to Check Out

If someone were going to sign up for space travel, or a couple of years in Antarctica, you’d think they would check it out with others who have done it before. Yet young sadists enlist for illegal wars every day without talking to even a single vet. All they consider are video games, movies, recruiting commercials and their secret fantasies. No wonder there are so many people coming back with lifelong PTSD.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Faker America

Aficionados of murder mysteries will recognise the archetype America. She contrives flimsy excuses for murder based on self-defence. She milks the rôle of victim with melodramatic zeal. She endeavours to make her kills look like natural causes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

False Excuses For Child Killing

child war casualty Our leaders callously lied to us that it was necessary to kill children in Afghanistan and Iraq to protect us from bin Laden even though:

Now that bin Laden is dead, what is Obama and Harper’s new excuse for killing kids?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Falsely Accused Of Being A Dictator

If a leader got there by democratic election, if he has to face another election within 6 years, if he has support of the majority of the people it really makes no sense to call him a dictator. Yet American branded Allende, and Chavez dictators solely because they were no fan of Republican economics. On the contrary, Americans prop up even the most vicious unprincipled dictators if they subscribe to Milton Friedman’s be-nice-to-the-rich-and-bastards-to-the-poor economic theories.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Americans succumbed to the temptation to mass torture out of four motives:

  1. fear

    the motive of the naïve person in the street, as if Iraqi peasants had any conceivable means to harm them.

  2. sadism

    Bush and Cheney’s motive.

  3. racism

    the anaesthetic for conscience and common sense. Americans would never have tortured Caucasian Christians so casually. American Christians tortured brown-skinned Iraqi and Afghan Muslims with the same religious fervour that the Catholic Inquisition tortured the Albigensian heretics.

  4. conceit

    Americans are in a position much like the waning days of the British Empire. Their insecurity makes them wish to punish anyone who tacitly refuses to acknowledge American privilege and superiority.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fear of ISIS

If you are afraid of ISIS, it is because you have a guilty conscience. They have a minute fraction of the military might of Canada or the USA. We attacked the countries of the middle east and stole their resources, not the reverse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Feeble Excuse for Mayhem

Americans are so self-centred and conceited that they imagine they are justified in invading and occupying a country for 16 years and 6 months and plundering its resources simply on the grounds they thought a fugitive might be hiding there. (It turns out there were wrong, but they kept on and on occupying Afghanistan. What a nation of weasel-mouthed mirror-wankers!) Would they invade, occupy and plunder Mexico or Columbia with the same feeble excuse?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Feeble Excuses

Commentator Rex Murphy excused the Americans killing Iraqi civilians because Iraqis killed collaborators and there was Shiite/Sunni killing as well. This is like excusing Stalin because Hitler killed people too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fighters?

Given that ISIS has no aircraft, why are we sending fighter jets to engage them? You would think bombers are what is required.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fighting Against Religious Freedom

Americans tell me they are killing people in Afghanistan because they want to terrorise the Muslims there into giving up Islam with its oppression of women, religious intolerance and harsh treatment of criminals. They also tell me they are fighting for freedom and to stamp out terrorism. Isn’t killing Muslims for refusing to convert to Christianity a rather blatant assault on religious freedom? Isn’t killing civilians to make them change religion the very definition of terrorism? How is it Americans never notice the irony?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fighting Al Qaeda?

Obama announced in his 2010-05-12 joint press conference with Hamid Karzai that the USA had been fighting in Afghanistan for over 9 years to protect the USA from attacks from Al Qaeda. However, his own generals announced there were less than 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. This is like making a decade-long war on a threat much smaller than Monaco. His explanation does not pass the laugh test.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Flavours of War Story

Listen to vets telling their war stories. Vets of WWI and WWII are grim; their stories are about fear. Those of Afghanistan or the two Iraq wars are joyful, as though recounting a hockey or video game triumph.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Folly of Killing Civilians

In WWII the resistance attacked the occupying Nazis with bombs in often suicidal attacks. In 2012-08 the Taliban made suicide attacks against ordinary Afghan citizens. What on earth are they thinking? I could understand them attacking the occupying Americans, or Afghan collaborators, but why ordinary citizens? This certainly won’t win them any hearts and minds. It won’ punish the Americans or make them leave any sooner. It almost as if they are angry and frustrated, so take it out on the easiest victims. Maybe they see all Afghans but themselves as active collaborators.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Folly Of Paying Your Adversaries

I have to laugh at the naïveté of the American military paying Taliban to switch sides. I could see Taliban signing up by the thousands, taking the money to buy rockets to blow up Americans and acting as spies.

Only the must unscrupulous people cave to an occupying power. They may pretend to collaborate with the occupying force of course. Consider the Nazi occupation of France. Imagining the Taliban now love you after what you did to their children and their country just because you tossed them a few bucks is naïve to the nth degree.

The military must be mentally ill, with monumental conceit, to imagine the Taliban could ever forgive them, must less join them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Folly of War With Iran

Americans are very concerned that in a war with Iran, Israel could be harmed. On 2002-01-29, in his SOTU speech, transcript, Bush vowed to annihilate Iran, presumably triggering Iran to develop nukes to deter that attack following the lead of North Korea which used that same strategy to successfully fend off a similar attack. Now America is talking about preemptively attacking Iran, starting a nasty war where Iran would block the Straits of Hormuz and with it most of the world’s oil. Iran is fully aware that if it used nukes, the USA would obliterate it with a rain of ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missile) s. It sounds like the cure is far worse than the disease. It is hypocritical of the USA and Israel to arms themselves to the teeth with nukes and expect those they threaten to disarm and roll over and welcome invasion and theft of their natural resources the way Iraq and Afghanistan did.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Foolish Military Spending

If all goes well, whatever you spend billions on to buy for the military will never be used. So it makes sense, at the very least, to direct that money to help the domestic economy. Further, if you buy your military hardware from some foreign power, that power knows all the secrets of construction of your military equipment and they can cut you off at any time they please and they can sabotage you by accident, as China did to Canada, at any time they find convenient.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

For Deterrence Only

Every time military people have persuaded the politicians to fund some new terror weapon for deterrence the found an excuse to use it. They are like little boys. The desire to play with a new military toy is irresistible. Kennedy barely managed to contain his generals from taking ICBMs for a trial run.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

For the Oil

If you ask an Iraqi why the USA is occupying their country, to a man, they will tell you for the oil They have almost no other wealth. No wonder they fight like a cornered mongoose to hold onto it. The one other major piece of wealth they had was a stock of seeds that could grow in high temperature and drought conditions, created over thousands of years. Monsanto stole it all with the help of the US military.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fred Phelps

On 2011-03-02 the US Supreme Court ruled that professional lunatic Fred (godHatesFag.com) Phelps could picket military funerals for reasons nothing to do with the soldiers or their families. It is odd that nobody pickets these funerals on the grounds the dead soldiers are war criminals, openly guilty of a capital crime, namely aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) illegal war. The families are guilty of living off the avails of these crimes. Americans have their heads in the sand about the legality of their two wars. They don’t want them to be illegal, so they collectively pretend they are legitimate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Friction Leads To War

One of the most disturbing ideas Machiavelli promotes is that friction always leads to war. The only question is when to hold the war to your maximal advantage. He believes there is no point in trying to postpone or avoid war entirely. The cost of war financially, in lives and property damage is much higher now than in Machiavelli’s time, but I fear many international leaders are still thinking like Machiavelli.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Friendly Enemies

America made a $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. What? Is that the same Saudi Arabia that provided the funding and suicide attackers on 2001-09-11? Is that the same Saudi Arabia that is arch enemies with Israel? Is that the same Saudi Arabia that is the centre of Islamic extremism? Who benefits from this insanity? American arms dealers: Lockheed Martin, who make the F-35 fighter and McDonnell Douglas, who make the F-15 fighter. Americans are completely nuts. They arm Saudi Arabia, the country whose people attacked them on 2001-09-11 and pound the bejesus out of two other countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, that had nothing to do with 2001-09-11.

History may reveal Obama made a deal with Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas. They would let him ramp down the Afghan/Iraq wars a notch in return for the Saudi contract, which is quite politically embarrassing to Obama. Obama will appear weak on terrorism at a time when he is in trouble in the polls. This just goes to show you the power of the defence industry. The sole purpose of Lockheed Martin and McDonnell Douglas is to make money for their shareholders. The only way they can do that is to foment wars wherever they can or drag out existing ones. How can Obama possibly broker peace in the middle east with these two gorillas from hell threatening to destroy him if he does not help perpetuate war? They sell to all sides.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fuck the Legion

white poppy knitted poppies

The Canadian Legion is one of my least favourite institutions. Why?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fuck Morality

Very few Germans publicly questioned the righteousness of Hitler invading his neighbours unprovoked, so it is not surprising most Americans have no moral qualms about invading and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans are concerned about American casualties, war costs and oil — not about morality or legality.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fuck Red Poppies

I refuse to wear a red poppy. Damned if I will honour today’s war criminals fighting in illegal aggressive wars. Honouring them cheapens the sacrifice of those who truly did serve and defend their country.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fuck the World Court

America does not recognise the authority of the World Court in the Hague. It flagrantly violates the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg principle that a country may not invade another without being attacked first. Similarly, Bonnie and Clyde did not recognise the authority of the US courts, however, that did not prevent the US justice system from eventually nailing them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fudging the Counts

As of 2010-04-11, the US military claims it has killed only 4000 Afghan civilians, all by mistake. This is absurd. When you drop bombs on cities you know that 50% of the victims will be children simply because 50% of the people in the buildings you blow up in Afghanistan are children. Half of the rest will be women. Only a small fraction will be combatants. There is nothing at all accidental about the killing. The military don’t count the over 1,000,000 civilians they starved and froze to death in the first winter of the war by cutting off all supplies including humanitarian aid. They also don’t count kills by special forces or contractors.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Function of God in War

In a war, both sides imagine they are in the right and a deity is on their side. The worse they behave, the more they have to convince themselves of the justness of their cause to justify their atrocities. Note, for example, how Americans fancy themselves as the saviours of the planet. They are also the only nation to routinely use banned weapons, torture, target primarily civilians and to attack unprovoked.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Function of the Navy

The Navy should stick to what it does best — making porn videos.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Funding Wars

Wars, like other government projects, require funding. They must compete for funding, just like other mega-projects promoted by lobbyists. The lobbyists with the biggest purses to sell their wars both to the politicians and the public are the ones promoting resource wars with the highest financial return. As Dr. Bethune put it, It is the secret of all wars: profit.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Funny Lunatics

My parents used to go to the movie theatre. They would watch Hitler screaming and shouting in German. The audience would roll with laughter. We have new lunatics that seem equally funny: Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul…

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Futility of Bribery

Americans are so fixated by the metaphor of war as football game that they imagine they can win the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by offering a better pay contract to the other side’s playersto get them to switch teams. That is insane. If Nazis invaded your country and made such an offer what would you do? Take the money, infiltrate them and defeat the invaders from the inside!

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Futility of Torture

The movie Zero Dark Thirty presented itself as the true story of how torture aided the capture of bin Laden. In fact, it did the very opposite. Tortured people tell their tormentors whatever they think they want to hear. The information gleaned was false and sent the Americans off on a wild goose chase. This should be obvious. It did not sink in just how obvious it is until I heard a CBC interview with Meher Arar, a Canadian improperly handed over to the Syrians for torture. The movie dishonestly tries to sell torture as legitimate and effective when it is neither, all the while posing as the liberal view. I think a few days torture for the film makers, financial backers and cast might be a fitting punishment for this Nazi-like attack on public morals.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Fêted Child Serial Killers

An unusually sick serial killer might kill a dozen people in a lifetime. Yet a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan could kill than many children in a few seconds and it would not be in the least remarkable. He would come home and be feted as a hero and trusted to be left alone with children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

G20 Summit

If the G20 Summit were ever held in the USA, the protesters would massacre the police with assault rifles and sniper rifles.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Gang Raping Soldiers

Soldiers are prone to gang rape. About three men take turns raping a girl. They cut off parts of her anatomy. This makes no sense morally or from a Darwinian point of view. Injuring the girl makes it more difficult for her to raise any offspring that may arise from the rape. The men can infect each other with their semen. The blood from the girl can infect the men. But then soldiers are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Garden Variety War Criminals

If you are a soldier and you lost some of your arms and legs and if you were injured in an illegal war (one where your country struck first), then you are lucky. You deserved a far worse punishment for your committed a capital crime. Your family too deserves to suffer for supporting you in your criminal enterprise. Neither you nor they deserve any pensions or financial support. I was just following orders is not a valid excuse. Ask all the Nazis hanged at the end of WWII for aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Gaza War Stats

In 2009-01 Israel invaded Gaza and bombed and killed over 2000 random people. Hamas killed 4 Israelis. Such is the power of propaganda that most North Americans see Hamas as the more blood thirsty.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

General Errors

Generals can be counted on to make two mistakes:

  1. Preparing to refight the last war.
  2. Underestimating their adversaries.

I will find it amusing when Americans find their own weapons turning against them in a future cyberwar.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Geneva Conventions

In 1996, the USA made violating the Geneva Conventions punishable by death. The Bush Administration violated the Geneva Conventions thousands of times in the Afghan and Iraq wars. Bush even called them quaint.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Getting Rid Of An Evil Leader

Consider powerful, evil, mad leaders such as Caligula, Genghis Khan, King Henry VIII, Napoléon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Adi Amin, Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong Il, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush… Mankind has not developed an effective way to get rid of such leaders. The only way we have is for someone to assassinate them at terrible difficulty and risk to themselves and quite possibly when the leader is innocent. Impeachment does not work since a powerful corrupt leader is willing to kill or ruin anyone who acts against him.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Gift That Keeps on Killing

What were the Americans thinking when they planted land mines in Viet Nam designed to keep on killing even 50 years later?

It is a wonder that Americans enjoy a reputation any better than Nazis. How else could it be but the fruits of dogged self-promotion?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Gilded Shit Vets

Vets of the Viet Nam war, especially those captured and kept in prison camps, feel hard done by. They forget they swooped over Viet Nam burning children alive. Surely anything done to them in the prison camps, including even being burnt alive, was a mild punishment for such unprovoked attacks. The Viet Namese did not even threaten America much less attack them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Giuliani Announced Pentagon Hit Before It Happened

Rudy I-kid-you-not Giuliani
Rudy I-kid-you-not Giuliani

It is possible there were no Americans involved (possibly coerced) in the planning and execution of 2001-09-11 but some Americans certainly knew it was going to happen. How else can you explain Rudy Giuliani accidentally announcing the plane hit on the Pentagon before it happened? How do you explain the phone call from an undisclosed source warning Willy Brown to cancel his plane flight? How do you explain the investors (whose names have been kept secret to this day) who made a killing selling short on American Airlines stock? How do you explain why so many people stayed home from work at the Twin Towers on 9/11 after receiving warnings? Finally, even the Bush administration admits some of its anti-terrorist people passed on warnings that got stuck in the bureaucracy. If you were one of them, would you have not passed on the warning to those dear to you in harm’s way despite the official secrets act? If you were one of those people notified, could you help yourself from warning a few others, no matter what the consequences for passing on a state secret? Knowing how much Cheney and others in the government and military enjoy torturing people in secret prisons, would you ever talk publicly about this?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Give It A Rest

CBC Radio, the Harper government propaganda organ, about twice a day broadcasts a piece about some war Canada once fought to help sell the military and war generally. It might be the War of 1812, WWI, WWII, Korea, Afghanistan… Basically it gloats about winning, patting Canadians on the back for being so brave and clever to defeat the wicked enemy.

They still use the old racist terms for their opponents and talk about them, as they did during the war, as if they were subhuman. They don’t ever mention current relations. There is never any discussion of the causes of the wars, or how they might have been avoided. This reminds me of a married couple where the wife recites a litany of all the things her husband ever did wrong, over and over and over.

I suggested to the CBC that modern day Germans might find this constant dredging up hoary old disputes irritating. Most Germans were not even born when all this happened. The CBC said the Germans would not take offence and between the lines suggested, they did not give a flying fuck if they did.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Giving Up Killing

Ending war requires convincing young men to forgo the selfish pleasure of killing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Glad They Died

Whenever I see movies involving post 1960 wars and a soldier from the aggressor country is killed or maimed, I have a sense of satisfaction. One more of these bastards who enjoy hurting others met a fitting end and has left the gene pool. My attitude conflicts with the violins soaring and the other actors bawling their eyes out as they strut about in their pompous little uniforms. When soldiers come home fresh from slaughtering other people’s children and embrace children, I cringe, just as if I would if the soldier were a known domestic homicidal paedophile.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Glorifying the Military

All North American radio stations, TV stations, newspapers a major magazines glorify the military. They never mention the fact the wars are illegal or pointless or that defence of North America is not an issue. They are silent about the fact these are aggressive resource wars. They never mention what truly motivates the soldiers. They make up excuses for their sadism. They behave exactly as the media did under Hitler. Why do they lie? They are in little danger. It is herd instinct and cowardice.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Glory in Old Victories

The way Americans and Canadians keep dredging up old battles from WWI and WWII and how we trounced the Germans or Japanese is so juvenile. Imagine a husband who carefully commemorated every time he had triumphed over his wife in an argument. Hint. Germany and Japan are now are friends. It is rude to keep rubbing their noses for crimes of their ancestors.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Goatskin Coracles

I have to laugh at people who claim it is necessary to kill Afghans to protect our freedom. How are they supposed to invade us, in goatskin coracles? If they arrived on our beaches what chance would they have? Zero.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why do so few Canadians and Americans protest the Afghan and Iraq wars:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Grief

A widow phoned into the CBC describing her inconsolable grief at the death of her husband over a year ago. It turned out he was a serial killer, who had been killed in process of killing an entire families. What advice would you give to this woman? A bit more data. His crime occurred in Afghanistan, and her husband was wearing a Canadian military uniform at the time. What advice now would you give to this woman? For me the advice would be identical. She was extremely lucky to be rid of a serial killer/war criminal. It was a very good thing his killing spree was stopped. Stop thinking of yourself. Think of his other victims.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Group Punishment

The ancient Romans believed in group punishment, punishing people for the crimes of others. If the resistance attacked a Roman soldier, the Romans would line up everyone in the village and kill every tenth person, a process they called decimating. Hitler did the same thing killing one in thirty. Americans and Israelis have their own variant. They kill at least 100 random children, usually with explosives, whose parents need have no connection to the resistance at all. They call this defending themselves and feel quite self righteous about the moral propriety of punishing children for the crimes of unrelated adults.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Guilt Paradoxes

The Japanese felt no guilt about attacking Pearl Harbour.
Americans believe the attack on Pearl Harbour will live in infamy.
Canadians think the Americans nuking two cities was excessive.
Americans think nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki served the Japs damn well right. There was no other choice.
Canadians think that Americans attacking Iraq without provocation was wrong. It was especially bad to pretend it was done out of nuclear self-defence.
Americans think that attacking Iraq was a noble deed. It was a very generous gift to give to the people of Iraq.
Germans thought that attacking Poland was a noble deed.
Americans consider Hitler putting Jews in concentration camps and starving them to death the biggest atrocity in recorded history.
Germans saw the treatment of Jews in WWII as justified.
Germans thought is was ok to beat up Jews and confiscate their property.
Americans think it is ok to mass-torture Muslims, kill their children and confiscate their property.
Canadians insist their soldiers never kill anyone in Afghanistan but the worst terrorists. Canadians would never dream of dropping bombs on children, but if they did, there was no other choice.

Can you see the pattern of how human psychology works to explain how different people look on the exact same deeds and see something completely different?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Guilty Doctors

Surely doctors who collaborated with the Americans in torturing prisoners have forfeited the right ever to practice medicine again.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Had Hitler Won

Had Hitler won WWII, I am pretty sure he would have tried to sweep the atrocities, the illegality and the immorality of his war under the rug, just as Obama is doing now with the Iraq war he inherited.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai is arguably the biggest drug dealer and most corrupt dictator on the planet. It madness to push such an unpopular man down the throats of the Afghans and claim he represents the gift of democracy. Much as we dislike the Taliban, they represent the current democratic choice of Afghans. We should trust the democratic process and trust the Afghans given the tools of democracy to bring in a more enlightened government, perhaps one we don’t like that much, but that is not what democracy is for.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hamid Karzai, Biggest Crook on Earth

America is turning democracy into a joke by forcing a war lord and drug lord as crooked as Hamid Karzai down the throats of the Afghan people, even after he was caught stuffing 20% of the ballots. It is not democracy unless the people governed make the decisions about who will lead them. The Taliban have won the hearts and minds of the majority of the Afghan people. It is not democracy when you exclude those you don’t like from the political process.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hanging Offence, Ho Hum

I have yet to meet an American who thinks a war crime is a big deal. Either they are unaware/deny that aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war on another country is a capital crime, or they say they will never be prosecuted for it because they are too small a fish, or because the USA protects its citizens from prosecution in the world court. Do they feel this way about all crimes? Are those with a fool proof scheme to get away with bank robbery or child rape also effectively innocent?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Harbouring Cheney is as Illegal as Harbouring Bin Laden

Dick Cheney is a wanted war criminal for trial at the Hague. He avoid trips to Europe to avoid prosecution. The USA harbours him. This is illegal. The USA is required by treaty obligations to hand him over.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hate Causes Irrational Behaviour

Hitler’s hatred of the Jews caused him to kill them before and during WWII. Had he been more rational, he would have used them as cannon fodder, won the war, then betrayed them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hawk Self Deception

The only way a hawk can maintain his pro-war stance is by massively lying to himself and blocking out the hideousness of war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hawk/Dove Test

This is an epitaph from Greece circa 450 AD. This memorial is set over the body of a very good man. Pythion from Megara, slew seven men and broke off seven spear points in their bodies… This man, who saved three Athenian regiments… having brought sorrow to no one among all men who dwell on earth went down to the underworld, felicitated by all. If you see comic irony, you are a dove. If you don’t, you are a hawk who likely celebrates the deeds of child rapists and serial murderers as heroic.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Heartless Cheney

It is too bad that Dick Cheney will probably die before facing trial for his war crimes and subversion of the constitution. Known for his heartless condoning of torture, he now literally has no heart. He had it replaced with a temporary blood pump.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Help Yourself

You may have noticed how quotations pop up at random all over my website, aimed at exposing the idiocy of war. You are welcome to use any or all of the quotations in my quotation collection in a similar way on your own website. To get your point across these days, you have to shrink it to a sound bite.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Helping ISIS

When the CBC gave ISIS’s 6-minute video a better review and more coverage than either the new Star Wars or James Bond movies, its creators probably consider this a miraculous gift from Allah to spread the Word. Then again, possibly the video is acting as a decoy, intended to lure would-be Canadian terrorists to contact its director.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Herd Cowardice

War persists because of herd cowardice. People let their leaders and soldiers get away with the most preposterous lies because everyone else does. They are afraid to be the only one to tell the truth. So they pretend to believe the lie, which further disheartens others who also see the lie.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Heroes vs Soldiers

American has great heroes, the 2001-09-11 responders for one. They risked and literally gave their lives to save others. They are the complete opposite of those who volunteered to butcher children in Afghanistan and Iraq for their sadistic jollies, telling me they did it for the money, as if that were an excuse for serial child murder.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Heroin War

Canada, along with the USA and Britain, invaded Afghanistan in 2001. They installed the world’s biggest heroin drug lord, Hamid Karzai as puppet dictator. The Taliban had all but eliminated the heroin trade. Under Canadian rule, it soared to #1 in the world, $1 trillion a year, more than enough to satisfy all the junkies on earth. The Canadians did absolutely nothing to suppress the heroin trade. It would not have been hard to stop it. After all, the Taliban were able to without any technology. The Canadians had the advantages of satellite surveillance, martial law, easy to spot poppies, a desolate landscape, no need for search warrants and no environmental impact studies for mass herbicide use. The Canadians stand accused of being involved in the drug trade. They deny it. They claim, to a man, they are all Dudley Dorights. I find this implausible because $1 trillion a year is enough to bribe every Canadian soldier in Afghanistan with $3.7 billion dollars a year. It seems the thankless job of being a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan might not me so thankless after all.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hiding the Illegality

The American media have worked very hard to hide from the people the fact that both the Afghan and Iraq wars are illegal. Aiding and abetting an aggressive, (first strike), war is a capital (hanging) war crime. Even when notables like UN Secretaries General Boutros Boutros-Ghali or Kofi Annan or lead Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz explain this, TV networks do not report it.

When I point this out to informed Americans, they remind me that the USA does not recognise the authority of the World Court. This means the USA does not hand over suspected war criminals to the court, as other countries are required by treaty to do. This stance does not protect American citizens from prosecution. It is bit like a powerful bank robber imagining his gang is immune to prosecution because the gang does not recognise the authority of the police. War criminals Saddam, Milosevic and Eichmann all protested they did not recognise the authority of the court. It got them nowhere.

Just as few rank and file Nazis were ever prosecuted, so it is mainly the higher ups in the USA who are most at risk. Perhaps they will be nabbed when carelessly traveling internationally. Cheney avoids European travel for just that reason. There is also the matter of just how much the USA could intimated the World Court, if, for example, a high profile criminal like Dick Cheney were captured and tried. The USA could conceivably bomb World Court signatory countries to get its way, or send in a large contingent of Navy seals to spring him.

But that does not change the fact any friend or loved one who serves in those two wars is has committed a capital crime whether they are ever prosecuted or not. It is preposterous to claim any act they committed as part of that crime was heroic. It is like talking of heroic bank robbers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hiding Kills

Starting about 2000, combatants started to hide their kills. Instead of exaggerating them, they denied them, the blamed third parties and even blamed the victims who were doing it ostensibly to gain sympathy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hierarchical Military

The military is a hierarchy where superiors browbeat, abuse and bully their inferiors. Everyone gets Stockholm syndrome and starts to feel proud of the abuse they have endured.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

High Moral Ground

Oddly, I don’t hear Americans accusing the Afghans and Iraqis of attacking other nations unprovoked, using banned weapons, ignoring the Geneva conventions and routinely torturing P.O.W.s… Yet the Americans do those things openly plus rendition, indefinite imprisonment without trial and target civilians… So who has the moral high ground?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hired Killers

Some soldiers have assured me that the only reason they kill people (innocent and otherwise) is because they are paid to and they can’t get any other job. You could say that equally well for someone who signed up as a hit man with the Mafia. Mafiosi rarely butcher children, so such soldiers are morally inferior to Mafia hit men. This is hardly a honourable excuse for murder. But I don’t believe even this lame excuse for a minute. The pay is terrible, the hours exhausting, the conditions miserable, the locations hellish and the risks to health, life and limb excessive. They enlist despite the low pay and terrible conditions. In Canada, they enlist even when the pay is lower than welfare. In other words, they enlist because they either like killing or enjoy being ordered to kill.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Historical Cons

Circa 1804, General William Henry Harrison would hold parties and get groups of ordinary natives drunk out of their minds, then get them to sign treaties handing over their lands without compensation. These were just ordinary men without authority to sign treaties. The US government insisted these phony treaties were valid and killed the natives living on those ceded lands as trespassers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Historical Serial Killers

To understand Bush and Cheney, you need to study the life stories of the great serial killers of history. In particular, study how they appear on the surface to be charming likeable men. Learn how they get extreme sexual pleasure from humiliating and inflicting pain on others. They come from toxic families. They successfully pull off their crimes because no one can believe it is possible they could be such fiends.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hitler and Bush

Hitler attacked other countries unprovoked, starved civilians to death many of them children and executed over a million of them using the same gas the USA used for gas chambers. George W. Bush did all these things plus routine torture of P.O.W.s, plus use ofbanned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). These burn people alive and depleted uranium to deform their fetuses for generations to come. Bush collected kiddie rape videos. Bush declared the Geneva conventions quaint and destroyed electric, water and sewer plants to trigger epidemics of cholera and other water-born diseases. Yet in the popular estimation, Hitler was an unspeakable monster and Bush was merely misbehaved. America treats Bush as an indulgent mother treats her serial-murdering son.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hitler the Hero

If Hitler had not been quite so grandiose and set out to conquer the world only a country at a time, today, we would consider him a great hero. The winners get to write the history books.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hitler’s Other Victims

Everyone has heard about the 6 million Jews that Hitler executed. But how often you hear about his 12 million other victims — the homosexuals, the gypsies, the leftists, the disabled, the JWs (Jehovah’s Witnesses), the Serbs…? I suspect modern day Republicans quietly envy Hitler’s bloody minded treatment of these groups that they despise too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hitler’s Unilateral Disarmament

In WWII Hitler sent V2 Rockets to bomb London. These rockets cost roughly the same as a fighter plane. That was like building fighter planes that dropped at best one bomb on a random target then were shot down, hardly sustainable economics for a weapon.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Holy Soldiers

To Americans, the soldiers are the holiest people. They are exempt from all laws of civil society. They can rape, torture and murder and still be called heroes Even a CSI (Crime Scene Investigator) autopsy of a war criminal is accompanied with special holy music not accorded any other class of victim.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Home Invasion

The Iraq war amounts to home invasion on a massive scale, yet Americans can’t understand why the rest of the world, including the international court, considers what they are doing criminal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How Animals Fight

Watch animals e.g. insects, reptiles, deer, birds— They strut and glare at each other, deciding which one would be more likely to win a fight. The weaker withdraws. Only if they are too closely matched to make the determination do they actually fight. And even then they do, they do it in a ritualised way and the fight stops as soon as the stronger is determined. Rarely is either animal seriously injured.

Humans have delusions of grandeur. They overestimate their own strength (e.g. that a deity will tip the balance in their favour) and hence get into fights when they have no chance of prevailing. Further, they fight in ways that cause permanent injury or death.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How Big A Military

You don’t need a military bigger than everyone else put together just to defend yourself. It has to be for world domination.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How Cowards Justify Killing Children

American soldiers justify killing children in Afghanistan and Iraq in two main ways:

  1. The children might be armed. It is thus necessary to kill them in pre-emptive self-defence.
  2. The children will grow up to be terrorists. We must kill them while they are still easy to kill.

I answer thusly:

  1. You put yourself in harm’s way by enlisting to kill people in Afghanistan and Iraq. You killed that child’s parents. You raped his sister. You tortured his brother. You showered his playmates in white phosphorus. Of course, he wants to kill you. You deserve to be killed. You attacked him, not the reverse. He is legitimately defending himself against an illegal invader.
  2. People in Afghanistan and Iraq make less that $5 a month. Those peasants have no means to mount an attack on the USA. Even after a decade of war, they have not mounted even one attack. Those mounting domestic terrorist attacks are American citizens, not Afghan citizens, disgusted with their own country’s behaviour. If you want to discourage attacks, stop behaving like Nazis.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How To Destroy The USA

If someone wanted to destroy the United States, a military attack would be futile. The USA spends almost as much its military technology than everyone else put together. I can see two other approaches with much higher probability of success:

  1. Exploit the fact that computers and the Internet were not designed with security in mind and that economics have demanded nobody fix the problems. Even a single desktop computer in the hands of a sufficiently clever team could shut the USA down.
  2. The other method would take longer, but would be much harder to defend against. Fund religious fundamentalist politicians. They will destroy the country for you by making unscientific, irrational decisions and shutting down science education. The catch is they might take the whole planet down with them.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How To Destroy the USA

If someone wanted to destroy the USA, the approach least likely to succeed would be a military invasion. The approach with the greatest chance of success would be to see that a motley collection of nitwits, cranks and crazies were elected. They would disrupt government having no concept of how it worked and no loyalty to the big picture just to their crank theories. The Koch brothers are succeeding in just such a coup and it does not occur to anyone to try them for treason. We have seen so many times before when a democracy becomes hamstrung by traitors, a dictator can easily walk in.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How Do We Know?

Nearly everyone is completely convinced Al Qaeda and bin Laden were behind 2001-09-11. How do they know? George W. Bush told them. I can’t think of a single thing that Bush said of significance that was true, so it seems unlikely that he was fully truthful about 2001-09-11. I want to see a court case with evidence. Until then, I consider the question open even if most people consider me a communist terrorist for doing that.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How Hitler Did It

When I was a teen, I often wondered what on earth got into ordinary German citizens that they not only went along with the Nazis, they also cheered them on and started a world war so Nazis could dominate the earth. Finally, I think I understand what happened. Hitler had control of media in Germany, much the way a few corporations control the media in the USA today. Hitler pumped his We’re Number One message, just the way American TV pumps its patriotic flag worship, America uber alles propaganda 24/7. Today, almost every American I encounter has never read a book on politics and does not read newspapers. He never reads anything written by foreigners. He may listen to talk radio or watch FOX News or other infotainment news. The way he decides if something is true is very simple. He asks Does it conflict with the notion Americans are #1, the most important, the most generous, the most virtuous people on the planet by far? If it does, it can’t be true. If it doesn’t, it must be true. There is no fact checking at all. Germans and Americans were thus putty in the hands of the propagandists.

Hitler was big on scapegoats suggesting that if only some group were eliminated all world’s trouble in the world would go away. Americans are big on scapegoats too. They use liberals, gays, blacks, pro choicers, Hispanics… Scapegoating has special appeal for losers. Even a high school drop out, alcoholic on welfare can feel superior to the local scapegoats with twice the income and education. This builds a culture of hate and violence that eventually erupts the way it did in Nazi Germany.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How Informed?

It is amusing that Americans imagine they are better informed on what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan than the people who live there, especially when their only source is FOX News, a company that freely admits it manufactures the news for maximum entertainment value. Americans defend their ignorance by considering it traitorous to even ask an ex-pat Afghan or Iraqi what is going on back home.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How to Kill Freedom

If a leader has an obsession to micromanage everyone’s lives, he need only declare war claiming it is self defence or revenge. In war, the people will submit like sheep to any repressive measure. If anyone objects, they can revile him as a traitor for giving comfort to the enemy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Recall how the Patriot Act was all ready to go prior to 2001-09-11. It had clauses nothing to do with terrorism, like absolving Merck of legal responsibility. The silly senators passed it in a panic before it had even been printed, much less read. America gave up its freedom to treacherous people. Recall the Orwellian defending freedom rhetoric used to sell it.

How Many People Did You Kill?

Most Americans refuse to believe they killed very many people in Afghanistan or Iraq. Let’s give that a laugh test. Are weapons more or less efficient than they were in WWII ? There has been a ton of research improving them, but for argument sake, let us presume today’s weapons are no more efficient (i.e. number of people you can kill per dollar is no higher). In 2011 dollars, WWII cost $4,104 billion. As of 2010 Iraq had officially cost $784 billion and Afghanistan $321 billion in 2011 dollars. In WWII, Americans killed 3 million Japanese. Of course, they also killed Nazis in Europe. The cost to kill each Japanese citizen was thus less than $1,400 in 2011 dollars. At $1,400 a head, the budget for the Afghan and Iraq wars should have been sufficient to kill at least 790,000 people. Consider though that compared with Japan, Afghanistan and Iraq were all but unarmed. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq had any means to shoot down bombers or sink ships. Their tanks were wiped out the first day. It was basically shooting fish in a barrel. That should make it much easier/cheaper to kill each person, meaning far more people than 790,000 should have been killed for that budget. Also consider that Canada, Britain, NATO and the coalition of the coerced also contributed to the budget for killing people. And finally the Americans used an extremely cheap way to kill Afghans at the beginning of the war they did not have available in the war with Japan. They simply blocked food aid from getting into Afghanistan during a weather-related famine.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How Much Do Soldiers Like Killing?

Soldiers like killing so much, they will prop up dictators they hate and butcher their friends.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How To Stop Terrorism

The biggest dent the USA could put in terrorism would be to stop killing civilians. They kill far more than anyone else.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How WWII Was Different

I was born a few years after WWII wound up. All through my childhood and teen years people wanted to bend my ear with stories of their experiences during the war. They looked on it fondly as a grand adventure. Back then everyone was involved in some way. Today, in the Afghan and Iraq wars, only the most bellicose people who want to kill, maim, torture and risk death are involved. This makes the war more psychologically damaging and makes the veterans less eager to talk about it. Yesterday’s motivation was defence of home. Today’s motivation is theft of resources, racism and sadism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How You Know Bush Knew There Were No Nukes

If the US military truly believed Iraq had nukes, why did they take no precautions during the invasion? Why did they not also handle Iraq with kid gloves the way they treat North Korea?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

How You Know Bush Lied

If Bush and his generals truly believed that Saddam had nukes, they would have treated Iraq gingerly, the way they treated North Korea. However, they went charging in knowing there would be no resistance at all.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hunger For War

Almost every notable person in history decries war, yet almost every politician lusts for it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hunger Strike

The American military want you to think of the hunger strike at Guantánamo is like a group of toddlers refusing to eat their carrots. It is much more serious than that. The prisoners who have been held without trial and without charge are trying to commit suicide to end their torture. The US government is preventing them from dying so they can continue to torture them. This is really sick, something you would expect only from the minds of Nazis.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hydra

Drones are a bit like heroin. If you use them, they temporarily solve your pain problem, but in the long run, they destroy your overall health. Every time you use a drone, and kill women and children, ISIS can use it to recruit a couple of dozen more fighters. Think also of Heracles of Greek mythology battling the many-headed Hydra. Every time he cut off a head, two immediately grew back in its place.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hypocrite Hillary

Hillary Clinton demanded the Egyptian authorities not interfere in any way with reporters covering the Egyptian revolution. Yet she is happy for US authorities to micromanage all coverage of the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Hypothetical Enemies

By far the biggest threat to Canadian security is climate change. There are hundreds of different ways it seriously threatens us. Yet Prime Minister Harper wants to spend nothing on climate change and the lion’s share of our defence budget on F35 fighters, a weapon specialised for fighting geographically localised wars serviceable by aircraft carrier such as the Iraq war. F35s are useless for patrolling the vast expanses of Canada’s frozen north because they don’t have the range or the ability to handle low temperatures. In just what scenarios does Mr. Harper plan to use these weapons to defend Canada and against which hypothetical enemies? He never tells us. Why is he doing this? The only answer I can think of is corruption. Why else but that he is taking bribes, perhaps technically legal bribes or he is under undisclosed threats? Can you think of other possible motives to blow the budget on weapons that we can never legitimately use?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Idiot Pride For Soldier Sons

Parents feel utterly sick when they discover the child they have invested so much effort into raising has become a drug addict, prostitute, rapist or murderer. Yet they feel pride when their child becomes a soldier and butchers (and sometimes rapes and tortures) other people’s children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Idiotic War

War is so ubiquitous, we forget how utterly idiotic it is. When soldiers invade a country, they destroy its infrastructure and homes that they will need months later for the occupation. War selectively culls the fittest young men, leaving the pudgy, ill and deformed to spawn the next generation. The Pentagon uses more fossil fuels than anyone else on earth — hardly a wise move when the motive for war is gaining control of dwindling petroleum supplies. Once the war starts, almost no one on the front line actually enjoys it. Even the sadists don’t like the living conditions. They just think they will relish it. The people who enjoy war most never go near the theatre of war. They make billions billing and bilking the government for war materials and services. Why should they get all the benefits and none of the pain?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

If It Were Done To You

Imagine that Afghanistan had attacked and occupied the USA for 16 years and 6 months. Imagine their excuse for the invasion was they wanted a criminal who might possibly be hiding in the USA. They wanted him handed over, without an extradition hearing, without negotiating an extradition treaty. Then USA refused the Afghanistan’s offer to turn bin Laden over to a third country for trial. Imagine they deposed president Obama and installed the world’s biggest heroin dealer as dictator. Imagine they bombed and desecrated churches and synagogues and their soldiers tried to convert people to Islam at gunpoint. Imagine if they converted the entire economy to produce illegal drugs. How would you judge this behaviour? Why do you judge it completely differently when it is your country (USA, Canada, Britain) that commits the crimes?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

If Nazis are Guilty, so are Americans

If you are an American and you hold the citizens of Nazi Germany responsible for the holocaust, then you must also hold yourself even more responsible for the American genocide of Iraqis, since it is being done in the open.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

If the Nazis Had Won

What would the world be like had the Nazis won? The winners of the war would still be telling themselves they were #1 and hence deserved the lions’ share of the world resource pie. Everyone would accept that somehow war crimes did not count. Torture would be commonplace. Soldiers who tortured, raped and murdered children would be celebrated as heroes. In other words, it would be little different from the way it is now.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

If Women Ran The Military

If straight women ran the military, it would probably be more democratic and less hierarchical and it would focus on defence not theft of resources of other countries.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

If You Are A Sadist

Imagine being a sadist who strongly desired to torture some children. There are basically two ways to satisfy this desire:

  1. Plot to torture some nearby children.
  2. Join the army. Go torture some children on the other side of the world.

What are the advantages to torturing a local child?

What are the advantages torturing a foreign child?

Most sadists go the foreign route. I suspect the big draw is being ordered to commit the crimes. The sadists don’t have to admit to themselves what they are doing. They don’t have to take responsibility. They can hide behind some BS that they were defending freedom. It is similar to getting someone to push you off the high diving board because it is just too big an adrenalin rush to do on your own.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ignoring French Experience

Prior to the Viet Nam war, the French also invaded and eventually decided the war was unwinnable. American pride made them refuse to even ask the French for a few pointers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ignoring the Law Does Not Make It Legal

Just because Americans believe that ignoring the Geneva conventions, torturing and using banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). Americans consider this perfectly acceptable, at least when Americans do them, does not make them legal, any more than Nazis claiming exterminating Jews was a noble deed made it so.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ignoring the Signs

The mother, wife or girlfriend of a serial killer always protest he was a gentle kind boy who would not hurt a fly. They deny the clues, e.g. that he enjoyed blasting the heads off animals and birds, or enjoyed threatening people with guns or that he enlisted in the military to go overseas to hunt children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ignoring the True Nuclear Danger

I find it odd that the world press consider a countries that cannot deliver a nuclear missile — North Korea and Iran far more dangerous than those that can — the USA, Russia, Britain, France, Israel, India and Pakistan. These nuclear countries have a long history of attacking other countries with minor or no provocation.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ignoring War Crimes

Americans almost to a man have a religious respect for the military. Even when Americans are upset about the US military killing children or civilians they never blame the soldiers, even ones who have brazenly committed capital war crimes. They don’t blame the generals or the president either. About the only outlet for their rage is recruiters who lie, bully and bribe to trick people into enlisting. Recruiters are becoming frequent murder victims on crime shows. Americans ignore war crimes much the same way American ignore sex crimes against children committed by the clergy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Illegal Invasions

The USA has repeatedly invaded other countries unprovoked. This is illegal. Nazis hanged for doing it. Americans excuse themselves for it, apparently on the religious belief that America can do no wrong, even when they can’t see any rational self interest for doing so. Consider Viet Nam, Grenada, Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq… You might be puzzled by the inclusion of the Gulf War. Google Ambassador Glaspie for how the USA betrayed Saddam to provide the excuse for that war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Imbalance of Power

Whenever two groups have an armed conflict, you can be pretty sure the one with the most power will behave worse and the one with the least power will enjoy the worse PR (Public Relations).

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Immorality of American Tactics

Americans claim to be morally superior to suicide bombers because Americans kill with torture, drones, white phosphorus and napalm. Both use quite effective means of terror, intimidating the entire populations. It seems to me, that suicide bombing is more sincere. Americans usually kill by remote control, with the idle boredom of a modern-day Nero playing a video game.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Immune to Prosecution

Only a handful of Americans believe in rule of law. The majority are completely opposed to trying American soldiers for international war crimes, no matter how serious the alleged crimes. Yet that same majority has no problem with hanging Nazis at the end of WWII for those same war crimes. In addition, that same majority feels comfortable with torturing and denying any civil rights to people simply because the military have labeled them terrorists even when they are not even alleged to have killed any civilians.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Immune to Prosecution

Only a handful of Canadians believe in rule of law. The majority are completely opposed to trying Canadian soldiers for international war crimes, no matter how serious the alleged crimes. Yet that same majority has no problem with hanging Nazis at the end of WWII for those same war crimes. In addition, that same majority feels comfortable with torturing and denying any civil rights to people simply because the military have labeled them the enemy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Impossible Dream

I don’t see how Obama imagines he is going to eliminate ISIS purely with air power without simultaneously killing every child in Syria and Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Impossible Surrender

If people are shooting at you, take a second to ask yourself, Did I start this fight by shooting at them first? If so, there is no way they will stop shooting until you do. Surrender in those circumstances most of the time, to them, means death. They would be insane to stop fighting! When you are the attacker, only you can call off the fighting. Americans have said they are willing to keep the fighting going for a century or more in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they blame the Afghans and Iraqis for refusing to surrender and die. And American wonder why they are so hated and despised. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq did anything to harm the USA or to attack them. They had no means to. They defend their country with kitchen-made bombs.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

In the Presence of Soldiers

It is amazing how comfortable some people feel near soldiers, even knowing they are brainwashed to kill innocent people for no reason.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inca Conquest

In 1491, the year before Columbus landed in the Americas, The Incas had technology in many ways superior to the Europeans. They managed cities much larger than any in Europe. They built massive earth works. They had mastered building with stone to precision that even today amazes. The Spanish defeated the peoples of the Americas not so much via superior weaponry as the accident that the Inca had no immunity to European infectious diseases. Even measles was fatal. It could just as easily worked the other way. The Europeans could have lacked immunity to Inca diseases. It could have been an Inca conquest of Europe rather than the other way around.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Incompetent Terrorists

The success of the Homeland Security people to derail terrorist attacks is astounding. It would seem to me that a terrorist would be a complete idiot to confide in anyone, yet they apparently nearly always seek out Homeland Security agents as co-conspirators. This suggests these people are rank amateurs.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inconsistency

There is something wrong with the universe when George Huguely is facing first degree murder charges for shaking his girl friend to death while George W. Bush faces not even a legal scolding for killing and torturing millions of innocent women and children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inconsistency In Depicting Crimes

Did you ever notice how oddly inconsistent North Americans are about depicting crimes?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inconsistent Law

Americans have the most peculiar sense of justice. You can anesthetize a child with chloroform, suffocate her with duct tape and leave her body to rot for a month in a car trunk and you get off. You can torture a child to death in Afghanistan who did nothing whatsoever to harm anyone using white phosphorus to make the death as painful and slow as possible and no one blinks an eye. If you kill enough kids, you will get a medal. But if you have a miscarriage, the law is down on you for murder.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inconsistent Nuclear Policy

Why is it OK for the USA and Israel to stockpile enough nukes to destroy the earth many times over, but when any other nation has even one, it is a totally unacceptable assault on world peace?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inconsistent Reaction to War Crimes

Why do Americans think it is perfectly OK for them to attack other countries who did not attack them first, but it is a hanging offence if anyone else does it?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Increase Military Spending?

Mitt Romney wants to increase military spending by $2 trillion, even though he would have to borrow the money from China. The USA already spends almost as a much money on the military as the rest of the world combined. Two major wars are winding down. You’d think there would be savings from that. Just what country is Mitt so afraid of? What country could attack the USA and not be defeated by the USA with both hands behind its back? The additional debt would harm the USA for every year to come. Today, conflicts are mainly fought financially. Ironically, Mitt’s plan would weaken the USA.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Incredible Propaganda

Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to Afghanistan, claims only 9% of Afghans support the Taliban. This is not credible. How on earth could 9% of Afghans defeat the remaining 91% of them, the USA (which has the biggest military on earth spending billions every month on the Afghan invasion, with the most advanced military technology on earth, bloody-minded enough to use banned weapons and torture on a routine basis), Britain, Canada…?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inefficient Terrorists

Terrorists could cause much more damage if they did not kill themselves in the process. They could attack week after week. From the terrorist’s point of view, his suicide is the central part of the act. Killing others in the process is just a fuck you to the world, or a way to impress fellow terrorists, or a way to raise money for the family. As a fuck you it is lame, inept gesture. It kills only innocent people. It would make more sense, for example to attack the Cincinnati Republican convention. The terrorists they could eliminate fat cats, people who force Christianity on Muslims, climate change deniers and oppressors of the poor while hitting relatively few innocent bystanders.

If we focussed more on discouraging suicide than the damage of terrorism, we might be more effective.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inflated US Military Budget

The United States spends more on its military than all other countries in the world put together. Polls tell us Americans believe this money is well spent, necessary to prevent invasion. They fail no notice that almost no countries are ever invaded, not even ones without militaries like Costa Rica. The country most likely to invade others is the United States itself. This suggests the purpose of the US military is not defence, but planetary hegemony.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Inside/Outside View

Inside Nazi Germany, had you asked anyone, they would have assured you that Hitler was the best thing since sliced bread. Outside, you would have heard more of the dark side. History, judges him as one of the worst fiends of all time. In like manner, inside the USA the Iraq war is a noble enterprise to spread democracy and defend freedom (albeit whose freedom is a bit vague). Outside, people feel freer to be less enthusiastic. History will condemn what America did with much the same vigour as it now condemns the holocaust.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Instilling Entitlement

What on earth gets into people that they think they have divine right to attack other nations unprovoked to steal their resources? How do they manage to feel so darn self-righteous about killing kids, torturing people, burning them alive — people who never did them any harm? Rome, Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia, America, Canada… They all did it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

International Law

To me this is utterly obvious. It also international law. Other people are not allowed to invade my country. If they do, I am fully justified in killing them. Conversely, I am not allowed to invade other people’s country. If I do, they are fully justified in killing me. Oddly, many people find this law controversial. They think there should be an exception for Americans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

International Law

The way international law works, any country can try any war criminal no matter what country that war criminal is a citizen of or where the alleged crimes were committed. It is only a matter of time until some country tries Cheney, Bush-43 or one of his henchmen. I enjoy the thought of this fate giving them ulcers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

International Scofflaws

Like Nazis and Israelis, Americans believe they are exempt from International Law. They believe the law forbidding preemptive attacks doesn’t apply to them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Intimidation

The key thing to understand about bullies is that they don’t have all that much power, but they are ruthless at intimidation. If one subject refuses to acquiesce, the bully can bring 100% of his might to bear on reprisals. However, if ten people simultaneously rebel, the bully has only 10% of his might to bear on each troublemaker and the bully becomes laughable. Groups such as the NRA (National Rifle Association) and AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) use classic bully tactics. Politicians fear them because of the way they single out any candidate who is not sufficiently submissive. However, a unified party as a whole has nothing to fear from them. Politicians don’t seem to realise that.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Introducing Democracy, Cough

You can look on the Afghan war either as an American attempt to stage a coup, or as a simple invasion and installation of an interim dictatorship. What you cannot do is pretend the war has anything at all to do with introducing democracy. The very fact Afghanistan, a country 1/10 the size of the USA, has fought America to a stalemate, indicates the vast majority of the Afghans oppose the American occupation and the Karzai provisional government. If even 30% of the Afghans supported the invasion, the Americans would have prevailed years ago. Americans are behaving in an anti-democratic way, trying to force the highly unpopular, extremely corrupt Karzai government down the throats of the Afghans. Even the US State Department admits Karzai was an unfortunate choice.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Invading Canada

What would you think if America invaded Canada because a suspected terrorist gang hung out there? What if it overturned the government and installed the world’s biggest drug lord as leader? What if it occupied Canada for 16 years? What if it routinely tortured Canadian citizens. What if it killed over a million Canadian civilians, mostly children? That’s what America did to Afghanistan. If the treatment of Afghanistan appears acceptable to you, it is because you are more of a bigot about people from Afghanistan than Canada.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Is Invasion Legal?

If you ask a Canadian or an American Was Hitler’s invasion of Poland legal?,
a history buff might respond: Participating in an aggressive [first strike] war, is a capital [death penalty] war crime. That’s why we tried and hanged the Nazi leaders at the end of WWII including the bureaucrats who issued orders but did not kill anyone personally. We even went after Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, but the coward killed himself before we could hang him. They did lots of other terrible stuff, but we nailed them all with the exact same charge, aiding and abetting an aggressive war.
Or they might say: It might not have been legal, but it certainly was wrong.
However, if you ask them: Was it legal for Canada and America to invade Afghanistan?
they will answer: Why not?
You point out: The Afghan invasion too was an aggressive war. We attacked them first, remember? It was illegal for Hitler, but OK for us? Really?
They might respond: They had it coming. They attacked us on 2001-09-11.
You correct them: Not even Bush claimed the Taliban had anything to do with 2001-09-11. He blamed Osama bin Laden, a Saudi and Al Qaeda, not the Taliban. He did not implicate even a single Afghan citizen in any way. You are conflating the Taliban and Al Qaeda just because they are both Muslims. They are not even both Arab.
They respond Of course, It’s legal if we do it. We attack others for damn good reasons! We’re not like those damn Muslim ragheads who kill you for no reason at all!
You query: Tell me again. Why did Bush attack Afghanistan?
They reply: Because the Taliban refused to catch bin Laden and hand him over for trial. Americans don’t need no steekin’ extradition hearing or extradition treaty.
You observe: Yeah, but that was a pretty unreasonable demand. It took Bush and Obama 9 years, 6 months and 26 days between them to nail bin Laden after you guys had occupied Afghanistan. Further, he was not even in Afghanistan. He was hiding in plain site in Pakistan.
They ask: So who’s gonna prosecute us?
You explain: Granted, so long as the USA is the #1 superpower, it will shield American and Canadian citizens from prosecution in the World Court, but how long can you count on that? And granted, if you are just a small fish, no one would bother coming after you, unless, of course, you were one the guys who went overboard on torture and rape. Whether waging aggressive war is legal has nothing to do with the probability of escaping prosecution for it. That is like claiming bank robbing is legal just because you have the crown prosecutor in your pocket and you will likely never go to jail yourself for robbing banks.
They typically terminate the argument with a cogent ad hominem: Commie traitor! I hope you die of AIDS you fucking fag!

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Invention of Warfare

There is no evidence for human warfare prior to 12,000 years ago, when agriculture was invented.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Iran Needs Nukes

Of course, Iran is seeking nuclear weapons! Why? Bush, in his axis of evil speech, promised America would annihilate Iran. Obama has not rescinded that threat. Iraq and Afghanistan fell to American invasion. North Korea did not. That is because North Korea has nukes and Iraq and Afghanistan did not. So naturally Iran sees nukes as necessary for its survival. Further, Iran’s arch enemy Israel has nukes. It needs a deterrent to Israel as well. If you want others to refrain from acquiring nukes, you must get rid of your own.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Iranian Bones To Pick With America

Americans believe Iranians have an irrational hatred for Americans. Americans have conveniently forgotten two things they did to Iran:

  1. In 1953, during the Eisenhower administration, the USA deposed the government of popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh and imposed one of the most brutal dictators in history, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
  2. On 1988-07-03, during the Reagan administration, the USS Vincennes entered Iranian water without permission then shot down Iranian Air Flight 655 killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 66 children.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Iraq Attacked the USA?

One of the most bizarre excuses for the Iraq war that Americans give me is that they are defending their freedom from attack by Iraq. What attack? 2001-09-11? Even president Bush on 2003-09-17, said that a Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. Bush said bin Laden, a Saudi and a small band of Saudi Al-Qaeda was responsible. Everyone saw the USA bomb the residential sections of Baghdad live on CNN on 2003-03-20, the opening day of the war, not the reverse. There was no WMD attack. There were not even any WMDs. Perhaps Americans are offended that Iraqis attacked them when the US military illegally invaded their country and started plundering it. That is defence, not attack. What American freedom did Iraqis interfere with — the American divine right to steal? The war was not even about liberating Iraqis from Saddam since Saddam offered to surrender before the war and was deposed the instant the war started. If regime change were truly what the war were about, the war should have ended as soon as Saddam was captured on 2003-12-13 ( 14 years and 4 months ago). It raged on even more fiercely, without even a hiccup, indicating there was something else fueling it. Hint what does Iraq have billions of barrels of that the USA thinks it desperately needs, needs badly enough to kill and torture children for? War is about stealing other people’s resources. The rest is patriotic bullshit to sell them to gullible people.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Iraq War Lasted Suspiciously Long

If the true purpose of the Iraq war were to depose Saddam Hussein, then it should have ended even before it started on 2003-03-19 when Saddam offered to surrender. If not then, it should have ended a few days after the invasion on 2003-03-22 when he was deposed. If not then, the occupation should have ended was Saddam was captured on 2003-12-24. It didn’t. Obama announced the war was winding down on the same day all of Iraq’s oil resources were auctioned off to American and European oil companies. What does that tell you about the real purpose of the war?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Iraq Was Not About Saddam

If the Iraq war were truly about taking out Saddam and installing democracy, the US would have withdrawn as soon as Saddam was toppled, Saddam was captured or the first election. The war rolled on through all three events without so much as a hiccup.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Iraqis Do Not Enjoy Being Occupied

Propaganda has been ceaselessly telling us that the majority of Iraqis support the American invasion. I know this cannot be true. How?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Irrational Revenge

Terrorists (possibly false flag or with inside help) killed 3500 Americans and destroyed two buildings and damaged one other. The Americans, in a flurry of revenge illegally and irrationally attacked two countries that had nothing to do with the attack. Americans have bombed Afghanistan and Iraq to rubble and killed millions of people and routinely tortured POWs. Yet they imagine these acts do not rate even one American civilian death in revenge? Why do Americans think everyone else is so much freer of the desire for revenge than they are? Why don’t they notice their own actions are far more outrageously malevolent than even 2001-09-11 was?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Irrelevant to Defence

It has taken 76 years for Americans to reflect on how much of the bombing in WWII had a military purpose. Much of the bombing intended only emotional terrorising civilians. It did not help reduce Germany or Japan’s ability to wage war. How many more decades will it take for Americans to admit their wars in Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq were motivated largely by racist and religious hatred and corporate greed, certainly nothing at all to do with defending America.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

ISIS

Destroying ancient artifacts is an inexcusable act of vandalism. It steals a record of our human history from everyone on earth. It has no function in weakening ISIS’s enemies. It is just spite. It is vandalism on such a massive scale, it deserves the death penalty.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

ISIS Attack on Ariana Grande Concert

I wish I could rip Salman Abedi’s liver out. How dare this bastard attack pre-pubescent girls! ISIS has no bone whatsoever to pick with them. What could motivate someone to commit such a horrible crime?

He might justify it this way. Britain and the USA have killed millions of civilians in the middle east over the last 16 years. This includes millions of children. He wants to teach Britain a lesson, to show them what is like to lose their children. This is a stupid thing to do. Britain will kill even more Muslim kids, seeing them as like insects unworthy of life, in revenge for the Manchester bombing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

ISIS is Crazy

I don’t just mean that ISIS’s behaviour is bizarre, it is suicidal. They want to lose and be destroyed. Consider that Hitler’s undoing was fighting a war on both the eastern and western fronts simultaneously. ISIS is running around picking fights with the most powerful nations on earth, most recently Japan. ISIS has done it in such a way as to utterly infuriate the entire populace. Fighting even one of these powers would have been difficult, but fighting them all guarantees ISIS’s elimination.

They may have swallowed the Islamic promise of paradise after death literally and they are eager to die soon, even more eager than they are to strike revenge at the west. It a collective suicide by cop. It is a mass religious delusion, a death cult, Christianity/Islam taken to its logical conclusion. They are ignoring the fact the Qur’an forbids suicide. They imagine through some loophole what they are doing does not count as suicide.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

ISIS Jerking Our Chain

Consider what would happen if ISIS simply shot a western captive without taking them into custody? What would happen if they threw the captive into a prison? Nothing at all would happen. It would not make the news. It would not attract the attention of world leaders. ISIS is getting great enjoyment watching us react in panic.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

ISIS Phobia

I have to laugh at the Canadian media over-reaction to the threat of ISIS. They behave like a cat cowering in terror at a hamster. They quake in terror at, hold it, John McGuire’s slick video. They give front page hype to the fact ISIS was raising the astronomical sum of $3 million a day. They failed to put this in perspective by reminding readers that Canada spends $619 million a day on its military and the USA spends $1.8 billion a day on its military.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

ISIS Popularity

Why is ISIS popular despite being so barbaric? The media completely ignore that question. They just like to pretend it is because middle easterners are inherently wicked, crazed by the

ISIS Popularity

Why is ISIS popular despite being so barbaric? The media completely ignore that question. They just like to pretend it is because middle easterners are inherently wicked, crazed by the wrong religion, ignoring the fact Islam leads the vast majority of the world’s Muslims to lead peaceful lives.

Hint: Canada, Britain and the US illegally invaded middle eastern countries in first strike aggressive wars. They tortured people. They killed children. They used banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). To middle easterners, we are as evil as Nazis. They see ISIS ’s atrocities to combat us as morally justified. We dropped an atomic bomb on Japanese civilians when we were similarly convinced the Japanese were subhuman. What we did is even more barbaric than ISIS’s beheadings.

The ISIS mess is really just a matter of reaping what we sowed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The ISIS Problem

There are two halves to the problem:

  1. ISISis seeking revenge for what the West has done to the middle East: bombing, killing children, using banned weapons, torture, selling off their oil to the West’s corporations.
  2. Religious fundamentalism.

The solution to the first is to bend over backwards to treat the people of the middle east fairly. Even as it is, they will not forgive us for centuries, if that.

The solution to the second is to fight superstition generally. We can’t very well encourage some irrational religious sects and while eliminating others. We have to undermine all superstition and religion.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

ISIS Propaganda

>ISIS propaganda claims the USA wants to kill all the world’s Muslims. That is not true. American rednecks would like to, but the administration has no interest in eliminating Muslims unless they are sitting on critical natural resources or threaten Israel.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

ISIS Recruitment

I read hundreds of articles handwringing about westerners going to fight against Canada, the USA and Britain in the middle east.

The elephant in the room is why?

The answer is so obvious, and so embarrassing to Mr. Harper and the like.

We illegally attacked Afghanistan and occupied them for over a decade. We killed them and tortured them for no apparent reason. We pretended they were attacking us. This was preposterous. The only weapons they had were kitchen-made IEDs. They had no means to attack us. Further, there were no attacks.

The young people heading off to Syria are idealists, not dupes. They are ashamed of how their country has behaved and how it refuses to acknowledge its behaviour.

The solution is to make amends to Afghanistan and to admit our wrongs, much like an AA 12-step program.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

ISISTactics

Imagine being a terrorist, I would think you would prioritise your targets to hasten the day you win.

  1. weapons and infrastructure your enemy can use to hurt you.
  2. combat soldiers
  3. people who support the soldiers.
  4. civilians who provide tax support to the war effort against you.
  5. medical people who patch up the soldiers you injure.
  6. random groups of people that contain a substantially higher proportion of your enemies than your supporters.

There would be no point in killing:

Yet these idiots blow up car bombs that kill random groups of people of perhaps 80 people. In terms of people left standing supporting and opposing them, they could well be worse off.

~ Roedy(1948-02-04 age:70)

It Is Not Extreme to Defend One’s Country

Americans call the Taliban extremists. What is extreme about fighting to end an occupation that has dragged on for 16 years and 6 months ? If someone invaded and occupied your country, surely you would feel no compulsion about killing the invaders and the collaborators. Do you consider yourself an extremist?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

It Were Done To You

Imagine the Russians developed some ultra-advanced military technology and successfully invaded and occupied the USA. Why did they do it? The Russians said they had to take out a rogue American leader who was abusing the rights of non-Christians and who was stockpiling nukes, preparing for a surprise nuclear attack. American were fairly sure it had something to do with food since the Russians auctioned off all American farms and ranches to Russian corporations and their friends. They set up checkpoints where they shouted at people in Russian and shot them if they did not stop, or go where they wanted them too. To make matters worse, they used Russian hand signals, where the stop signal to Americans meant come over here. Sometimes the Russians would set up two checkpoints back-to-back. They would wave a car-full of Americans through. The Americans often did not notice it was actually two checkpoints and drove through, presuming they had been cleared. This mistake called for immediate execution of all the car occupants by machine gun. The Russians were terrified of the American resistance they called the insurgents, since they considered themselves the new legitimate government of the USA. They spent most of their time driving about in convoys. The drivers were ordered never to stop for any reason. If an American child got in the way, they ran over her. If a car got in the way, they shot the driver. They were terrified of ambush if they even slowed down a little.

They had some rather impolite racist terms they used for all Americans. They considered the lives of Americans completely without value. They believed they had the right to kill any American, even a child, an elderly person, a woman, or someone proven unarmed, simply on the grounds that Americans sometimes resisted the invasion. The Russians considered this merely pre-emptive self-defence. They would routinely round up random Americans and torture them. They justified this again on the grounds of self-defence. The people they tortured might know something about planned attacks. Even though this practice almost never produced useful information, they continued it, mainly because they hated their victims.

Obviously, the Russian behaviour is illegal, but is it honourable? Most Americans think it is because they excuse themselves from doing the exact same thing in their invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Jesus’ Outrage

I this Jesus would be outraged to discover the Victoria Cross and Navy Cross given is his name for mass murder.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Jew Against Jew

I was distressed to learn that after WWII, the Jews who suffered in the concentration camps ostracised those Jews who had managed to avoid them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Jewish War Criminals

It is a capital war crime to aid and abet the invasion or occupation of a foreign country in an aggressive war, (a war in which your side attacks first unprovoked.) That makes every Jew in Israel a capital criminal. It is highly unlikely they will ever be tried, much less executed, but they would be if the same law applied to hang all the Nazi at the end of WWII were applied to the Jews in Israel too. If Jews were aware of that, they might have a tad more humility about their superiority over the Palestinians.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

JFK Was A Monumental Prick

JFK almost sent humanity extinct with his pride during the Cuban Missile Crisis starting on 1962-10-16. Nikita Khrushchev offered to withdraw missiles from Cuba if Kennedy would remove missiles from Turkey. This was a very good deal for the USA since the Turkish missiles were obsolete, and due to soon be replaced with Polaris submarines. Kennedy estimated the odds of nuclear war at 50%. Kennedy turned down the offer. Why? Because he wanted to send a clear message to Khrushchev that he could have missiles only within the USSR, and Kennedy could have them wherever he damn well pleased. My cock is bigger than your cock. Grovel or I will kill your family.

I will never forget day, I was completely sure I was a gonner. I had a seat overlooking the harbour to watch the attack. I will never forgive Kennedy. It is perhaps a good thing he was killed. Had he pulled another cowboy-ego-nuclear game, it is quite likely, none of us would be here.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

John Lennon

It is quite amazing how hateful Americans were to John Lennon. All he did was sing a song Give Peace A Chance. They burned his records. They accused him of being insane. Why were so many people so opposed to peace and non-violence? They all gave lip service to these values in the context of the teachings of Jesus. What a toxic society!

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) The US vs John Lennon

Journalists Behind Enemy Lines

In WWII, no journalist would dream of going behind enemy lines and expecting to live to tell the tale. Yet American, British and Canadian journalists act offended when they are not welcomed with open arms in Afghanistan and Iraq. They seem oblivious to the fact coalition of the coerced have killed millions of civilians, mostly kids, tortured routinely and used banned weapons.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Just Following Orders

At the end of WWII Americans laughed derisively at Nazi War criminals who pleaded, I was just following orders. I would have been shot if I disobeyed. The Americans hanged them anyway. Nuremberg settled the matter that soldiers are personally responsible for the crimes they commit, period. How different the attitude to the American war criminals in Afghanistan and Iraq. No matter what atrocities or war crimes they openly committed, to modern day Americans, they are still heroes, with zero personal responsibility for their crimes. To my eyes, the American soldiers have far less excuse than the hanged Nazis. American soldiers were not drafted, they chose to kill. American soldiers would not be shot for refusing to commit war crimes, merely jailed. They were far better informed that what they were doing was illegal than were the Nazis. Germany had not yet even signed a treaty outlawing aggressive (first strike) war back then.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Just Following Orders

It is odd that Americans will have none of the Nazi excuse I was just following orders, from men who would have been shot had they refused to obey, but they let off the hook completely US soldiers who committed war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, voluntarily, on the ground only leaders are responsible for who is killed. Soldiers just follow orders. They can’s see the hypocrisy, even when you point it out to them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Just Following ze Orders

Americans, especially enlistees, believe that soldiers bear no responsibility. The responsibility lies entirely with the leaders. The soldier’s job is just to follow orders and kill whom they are told to. Yet at the end of WWII, Americans excoriated the Nazi soldiers when they excused themselves saying I was just following orders. The Nazis had an excuse that no American has. Had they not killed, they would have been killed. In contrast, American soldiers choose to enlist and kill, maim, torture and rape innocent people.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Just Like the Nazis

If the Nazis had won WWII, the post-war German politicians would have argued for moving forward and avoiding a witchhunt because too many powerful people were involved in the genocide of the Jews, just as today American politicians argue for moving forward and avoiding a witchhunt because so many Americans were involved in torture and other war crimes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Just War

Is a war just? Pretty much everyone agrees any defensive war is just. Offensive wars usually start out highly popular, at least within the aggressive country and gradually become considered unjust. Perhaps a century later, the war dwindles to a historical embarrassment. If you want to be forward thinking, you might as well consider all aggressive (first strike) wars unjust, even when your own country is the perpetrator.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Justification for Killing

These is only one valid reason for killing someone — when there is no other way to prevent him from killing people. I doubt very many of the people the Americans and Canadians killed in Afghanistan or Iraq met that criterion. Self-defence would not apply in that situation since the Americans and Canadians invaded illegally. It would be like a home invader claiming self-defence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Justification for Maiming

When I see casualties of war, particularly the bystanders and the kids hideously burned, maimed or blown to a Cuisinart purée, I ask what possible justification could there be for such cruelty? If someone says freedom, I demand to know just whose freedom was enhanced and the freedom to do what? In what way, specifically, does that particular atrocity enhance anyone’s freedom? How could this hypothetical enhanced freedom possibly justify forcing innocents to sacrifice their ultimate freedom — the freedom to live?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Justifications for Torture

Here are four of the reasons Americans give for torturing people and killing children:

  1. Revenge for 9-11, even though George Bush himself said that neither Iraq nor the Taliban had anything to do with 9-11. He said the culprit was Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, living in Pakistan.
  2. Because if countries were allowed to run their economic systems in any way other than corporate capitalism, their success might encourage others to emulate them, e.g. Grenada, Nicaragua, Chile, Iran… (Some confidence in the American system!)
  3. Because, evil doers might someday acquire nuclear weapons. However, it is perfectly ok for the USA, Russia, China, Britain, France, India, Pakistan and Israel to maintain sufficient arsenals to wipe out life on earth many times over and to threaten to use these weapons if they don’t get their way. In the 2002-01-19 SOTU speech, the USA announced their intention to annihilate Iran, Iraq and North Korea, then wondered why the Iranians and North Koreans sought a nuclear deterrent to escape the fate of Iraq. Israel announced its plans to annihilate Iran, then complained when the Iranians said that Israel was an illegitimate state with no right to exist (which is true according to international law).
  4. Because the countries they invade have crucial natural resources such as oil, tin, lithium, coltan… that they need for their national security.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Justifications for Wars

When you hear the justification for wars, it always seems that the costs far outweigh any potential benefits. That because the leaders lie about the purpose of the war. It is actually for economic benefit, i.e. stealing natural resources. It is a type of gambling. The leaders bet the country hoping to take the natural resources of another.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Justified Murder

When is murder justified? Perhaps to defend the planet from ecological destruction, to defend one’s homeland from invasion, or to prevent extinction, but surely not for trivial motives like hegemony, oil and sadistic entertainment, the motives for most of the killing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Justified War

When is war justified?

It is not justified when:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Justifying Ripping Children to Pieces

I am horrified at Americans who justify ripping children to pieces with explosives, and burning them to death with white phosphorus because of 2001-09-11.

  1. Obviously, these children had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. Many were not even born.
  2. President Bush said their countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, had nothing to do with it.
  3. The perpetrator, according to President Bush, is bin Laden, a Saudi. Bush gave up chasing him long ago.
  4. Most of the perpetrators of 2001-09-11 are dead. They allegedly committed suicide in the attack. Killing random children is an insane way to seek revenge on those still alive. It makes so more sense that killing random Muslim American children.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Justifying Violence

CBCRadio On the Coast interviewed a spokesman for the Canadian military. The spokesman admitted Canada had done some terrible things in Afghanistan, including torture, (though he did not go so far as to admitting attacking unprovoked is a capital war crime). He asserted it was morally indefensible for any party to use any form of terrorism or violence to try to deter Canada. They must constrain themselves to non-violent protest. This makes no sense. Either violence is a legit way to persuade others or it is not. If Canada thinks it is ok to murder kids to persuade Afghans then surely it is ok for others to murder Canadian soldiers (or kids) to dissuade them. His childish logic goes something like this. I like killing people, therefore it is morally OK when I do it. I don’t like other people trying to kill me. Therefore, when others do it, it is morally unjustified.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Karma Please

It would be wonderful if there were such a thing as karma. Then I could relax knowing that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Fred Phelps, David Bahati, Brit Hume, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh… would experience the same suffering they had meted out to innocent people.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Karzai the Bastard

The USA and NATO have been pounding a way for 16 years and 6 months at Afghanistan spending hundreds of billions of dollars and have barely made a dent in defeating the Taliban resistance. Now the US Military tells us, that after the USA and NATO leave, Karzai, on a billion euro a year allowance, will either defeat the Taliban or force them to the bargaining table. What utter BS! That is not even wishful thinking. That is a bald faced lie. Karzai, collaborator and betrayer of his country, will most likely be strung up by the testicles, a fitting end to the crookedest politician on earth and its biggest drug dealer. If he is smart, he will have his private jet idling, reading to evacuate to a haven for drug lords where he can live the remainder of his life in unimaginable luxury.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Kickback Trillions

The US military is so corrupt it is preparing to bilk the taxpayers out of trillions for a new fleet of submarines to fight the Russians who no longer make subs. The only reason to do this is to turn a firehose of money on kick-back offering defence contractors.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Kill Anyone But the Target

Oddly, Obama is willing to kill anyone except Gadafi in attempting to topple his regime.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Kill a Kid For Cheap Gas

Why do Americans put up with their troops using banned weapons, torturing people, killing children etc? They imagine if they do, they will be rewarded with cheaper gasoline.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killed Committing a Crime

When a criminal gets himself killed in the process of committing a crime, the nation hoots at him on late night TV, but when an American soldier gets himself killed in an illegal aggressive war, he is honoured on TV as a hero, even though the criminal may have committed only burglary where the soldier committed murder, rape and capital war crimes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killers Demanding Respect

It is bad enough that soldiers kill men, women and children who had absolutely nothing to do with attacking their country, but they also demand to be treated as better that other people with special privilege and respect even though they are moral and intellectual inferiors.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killers Nearby

Everyone I know would go to great lengths to avoid killing someone. However, there is another class of person who seeks opportunities to murder others. These include criminals, soldiers, generals and high level politicians. They enjoy killing. They offer the most feeble and vague of excuses for doing it. Killing is an incredibly presumptuous thing to do. It says my pleasure in killing trumps your right to enjoy the rest of your existence. I am willing to completely vaporise all your potential for a few moments of my personal pleasure. Such people are infinitely self-centred and infinitely conceited. It is odd that we tolerate these people in society and treat them as if they were ordinary humans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing by Accident

If somebody drives drunk and hits a pedestrian, it is really an accident? If a carload of drunks drive along the street firing randomly at pedestrians (as happened to me three times in Portland) and kill one, was it is accident even if they were not aiming at particular pedestrians? Terrorists, when they set off a bomb in a market, don’t take moral responsibility. They tell themselves the people who were killed should have paid attention to the warning leaflets and stayed away from the market. Every week on so the Americans admit to accidentally killing a couple of dozen civilians or Pakistani troops. Well over a million civilians have been killed accidentally When Americans level a city with bombs like Baghdad or Fallujah, they know the buildings are cram full of civilians, half of them below age 15. They knew they are killing kids, but they still refuse to take moral responsibility. They claim it is an accident because their minds they were not targeting specific children, so the ones killed were accidents If you don’t take solid precautions to a avoid deaths as a side effect of your actions, you have no right to call those deaths accidents.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing Children

The US military is having trouble with soldiers, especially young married ones, refusing to kill children when ordered to in the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations. One of the research think tanks has come up with what amounts to an outsized version of the successful Tomcat Rat Killer that lets you kill rats without ever seeing them or knowing the mechanism by which they were dispatched. The child killing trap is baited with candy instead of peanut butter, almost irresistible to children living on a calorie deprived diet.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

I am pulling your leg. This is not literally true, but the military uses all manner of long range weapons, such as bombers, rockets, high powered rifles, flame throwers, napalm, white phosphorus,… that let soldiers kill their victims without ever seeing their faces.

Killing Civilians

In WWII the resistance attacked the occupying Nazis with bombs in often suicidal attacks. In 2012-08 the Taliban made suicide attacks against ordinary Afghan citizens. What on earth are they thinking? I could understand them attacking the occupying Americans, or Afghan collaborators, but why ordinary citizens? This certainly won’t win them any hearts and minds. It won’ punish the Americans or make them leave any sooner. It almost as if they are angry and frustrated, so take it out on the easiest victims. Maybe they see all Afghans but themselves as active collaborators.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing Civilians

The modern theory of warfare (World War II on) is if somebody shoots at you, they are likely well-trained and hard to kill. It is safer and easier to leave them alone. Instead you should kill somebody else who is much easier to kill, e.g. women, children and elderly. The theory is, those that shot at you will be so hurt by what you did, they will stop shooting at you. This, of course, does not work, as the endless wars in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq attest. Why doesn’t it work? One reason is soldiers are largely nasty selfish sadists who don’t give an shit about anyone but themselves. They just like killing and torturing people for any excuse. They might even vicariously get off on the deaths of the women, children and elderly, as is the custom of serial killers. The other reason is one of the women you kill might be a beloved wife or mother. Your opponent might then vow revenge even if it means a suicide attack. If you think about it, this strategy is as nutty as Cleavon Little, as Sheriff Bart, taking himself hostage in Blazing Saddles.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing Invaders Is Not Wicked

Americans think the Taliban are evil for wanting control of their country back, for fighting to evict the American occupation and for wanting America to fail all over the planet. Would you not want invaders of your country thrown out and to fall on their faces? What’s so terrible about that?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing to Save Lives?

How come almost nobody notices the inconsistency when a general excuses his slaughter of innocent civilians by claiming he did it to save the lives of innocent civilians?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing Terrorists

If in the process of apprehending a terrorist, he is killed, everything he knows about the activities of other terrorists dies with him. In the grand scheme of things, this information is probably far more important than that single terrorist. However, there is a testosterone-cowboy lynch-em mentality in the military and the police that does’nt seem to understand this. Lately, more often than not, they botch the job and kill the suspect. Perhaps they should take a page from people who manage to capture bears, elephants, tigers and poisonous snakes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing With Trial Is Not Justice

Americans universally claimed the killing of bin Laden was triumph of justice. That is not justice, that is vigilantism. Justice would be an open trial, followed by execution after conviction. By preferring vengeance over justice, Americans lost big time.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing Without Reason

Today’s soldiers have absolutely no interest in who or why they are killing. They consider that somebody else’s concern. In other words, they are not killing for a reason, they are killing because they like killing or they enjoy being ordered to kill. In either case, I consider that pathological, not heroic. I am not about to mourn the death of such a psychopath or even pay the most basic respects. To me, it would be like weeping over the execution of someone on death row for a brutal multiple murder.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Killing without Reason

What would you think of someone who signed a contract with the Mafia to kill anyone man, woman or child, simply on being ordered to, without any explanation? What would you think of someone who enlisted in Hitler’s army and signed such a contract? What would you think of someone who enlisted in the US Army and signed such a contract knowing the USA was involved in multiple illegal wars where it had attacked first nations that were no threat to it, but whose resources it wanted.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Kinky Soldiers

The kinkiest think I have ever heard of is young men shaving off their hair and becoming willing slaves to abusive old men who order them to kill children and torture people, i.e. join the US military.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Know Your Enemy

The classic advice in war is to know your enemy, to get to know how he thinks in precise and accurate detail. However, I have found the people in the USA and Canada who are at war against the Muslim world, prefer to believe inaccurate caricatures instead. They have absolutely no interest in what motivates those they slaughter, any more than a rancher is interested in what motivates the cattle he butchers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Kohlberg Morality Levels

Soldiers are stuck at level 1 or 2 of Lawrence Kohlberg’s levels of moral development.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lack of Curiosity

Most Americans accept the official story that Muslim suicide bombers attacked on 2001-09-11. Yet no Americans have the tiniest bit of curiosity about what motivated them to sacrifice their lives in such an attack. Even if Americans think the motive was a naïve bid to get laid in the afterlife, why would the attackers think Allah would reward such violence?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lack of Vigilantes

Given how many soldiers there are in the USA who have brazenly committed a capital war crime and go unprosecuted, it is astounding how rarely vigilantes assassinate them. Gandhi and Martin Luther King have been successful in convincing the people who find these war crimes appalling that such vigilante action would only make matters worse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Last King of Scotland

Many people are outraged at my disdain for soldiers and my assertion they are motivated by sadism and they lie convincingly about their motives. My contention will seem obvious if you watch the movie The Last King of Scotland. The events it describes are historic fact.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Laugh Test

Hitler spent $270 billion attempting to conquer the world. The USA spent $324 billion trying to subdue Afghanistan. Yet Americans persist in claiming they harmed no civilians.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Laughable Americans

Americans have embarked on a campaign to kill Al Qaeda by making them die of derisive laughter. For example Ron Paul refused to deny an allegation he kidnapped a woman, forced her to take hits on bong and worship the god Aquabuddha. Ron Boehner announced by reducing taxes (the money the people pay to the government), government revenues will increase, even though these voodoo economics have been tried before and has never worked. Military spokesmen announce that despite spending $1 trillion on invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq they have hardly killed anyone.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Laura Nash

Laura Nash is a young single Canadian mother of a six year old boy. She enlisted in the Canadian Navy then refused to go to sea for training because she would not be able to care for her son. Laura Nash is a nitwit who deserves to be keelhauled. The purpose of the military is to go away for months at a time to exotic places and kill people. What possessed this stupid woman to sign up for this life when she had a young son and no one to care for him when she was away? She has absolutely no right to demand accommodation. This has nothing to do with women in the military. It is about a sailor who refuses to go to sea.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) source

Law in War

I am gobsmacked that Americans see absolutely nothing wrong with using law to prosecute those who try to evict them from their illegal invasions, but almost never prosecute fellow Americans for murdering or raping men, women or children in those occupied countries no matter what the circumstances. Surely, in law, it is legal to kill an invader and illegal to participate in an aggressive war. Americans see it the other way around. It does not dawn on them that this view is mad. The attitude is so prevalent that peer pressure makes it seem rational.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Legal Right to Kill Americans

The people of Afghanistan and Iraq have the moral and legal right to kill American soldiers, anywhere on the planet because America attacked their countries unprovoked and continue to occupy their countries. Given that Americans have butchered so many children, the people of Afghanistan and Iraq also have the natural right, though not the legal or moral right, to butcher American children anywhere on the planet. We should all be thankful they have refrained from exercising that right.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Legitimate War

I can think of one legitimate reason for attacking and obliterating a country — if it refuses to reign in its greenhouse gas emissions. It is effectively sabotaging the life support system of spaceship earth.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lemming March

Throughout history, there have always been a few people who noticed that weapons were inevitably evolving more and more lethality. The end point of this escalation is the extinction of the human race. These people have so far been unable to persuade the general population to forgo this lemming march to mass suicide. Most people refuse to look at the big picture. They see only the immediate need for a better weapon to defend or conquer.

P.S. Lemmings don’t actually march to die in the sea.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lessons of Nuremberg

Those soldiers who forget the lessons of Nuremberg are condemned to repeat them, namely:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Let the Dead Bury the Dead

Everyone involved in WWI is dead and nearly everyone involved in WWII is dead too. Surely it is time to stop these public displays of grief and anger about slights to people long dead by people long dead. It is like obsessing over the crimes of Genghis Khan.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lies Of War

Because the governments of Canada and the USA lied to us so brazenly about the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, I am pretty sure they are lying again about ISIS. The lies are not so transparent this time, so I don’t know what they are up to.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Life Under Hitler

People presume that if Hitler had prevailed we would still be living today under the worst tyranny mankind has ever seen. Consider how many tyrants have fallen or their regimes have fallen with their deaths: Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Hasni Mubarek, Peron, Pinochet, Franco, Mussolini, Nicolae Ceausescu, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia…

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Like Living In Nazi Germany

I feel like a German living under the Nazis, trying to convince my nation that Germany’s attacks on other nations were wrong. I am a voice crying in the wilderness. Remembrance Day is wrong. Morally wrong for the exact same reasons those who eulogise the Nazis are wrong. I have posted an essay to explain why.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lincoln’ Genocide

Before he was president, Abraham Lincoln fought in the genocidal Indian wars whose aim was to eliminate the native population and to hand their lands over to white settlers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Logic of Suicide Missions

Americans are often puzzled why anyone would mount a suicide attack against Americans. In WWI and WWII American mounted all kinds of suicide missions, though they were not called that. They were missions with perhaps only a 1% chance of returning alive. Why did Americans do that?

I think the exact same motivations would apply to suicide attacks on Americans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Long Remembered War

It’s been 78 years since the Nazis invaded Poland. It does not look as though we are going to forget about it any time soon. So how long do you think the Afghans and Iraqis will remember what the Americans did to them. banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). They deprive them of water in the desert sun, starve them to death, blow up their hospitals, electric plants and water sanitation facilities, level their cities, spit on their religion and the endless indignities of military occupation.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Long Standing Resentment

The ancestors of the victims of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan are still resentful about it to this day. Modern day leaders of the USA, Russia and Israel should remember the consequences when they imagine brutality is the best policy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Look Before You Leap

Given the trouble countries inevitably get into when they leap into optional wars, given how difficult it is to wind down and withdraw from a war, given how wars always last longer than planned, given how casualties are always worse that expected, given how the main victims of war are children and civilians, given that the enemy evolves ever more lethal tactics over time, given that costs are nearly always orders of magnitude larger than estimated, it seems to me we should do everything humanly possible to plan out the entire sweep of the war before leaping in. Harper is like a be-whiskered cavalry general, eager to charge and behead the godless devils, damn the consequences.

Obama’s plan is insane in the sense of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It is just wishful thinking. The problem is there is no politically desirable solution, but Obama can’t face that. He would sooner lie, pretend there is, then fob the messy problem off on his successor.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Looting the Treasury

The Afghan war has been dragging on for 16 years, 7 months and 25 days. Those who profit from the war have argued again and again for just another year. Surely, if something could be done in a year, it would have been accomplished long ago. These calls for extensions are just excuses to continue draining the treasury into the bank accounts of Monsanto (neé Xe and Blackwater), General Dymanics, Halliburton, Lockheed etc. The Afghans defeated the invading Russians. They will also fight until they defeat the Americans. Like any people they can’t tolerate the tyranny of occupation and a puppet government.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Loser Americans

Given that the Americans had a massive advantage in numbers, budget and military technology, but were unable to subdue Afghanistan in 16 years and 6 months or Iraq in 15 years, (even when they cheated with routine torture, banned weapons and Geneva convention violations) Americans look pretty silly beating their breasts and shouting We’re Number One. At least in military strategy, both the Afghans and the Iraqis bested them. As a result, not even tiny Iran fears America any more. Americans are like the fat rich kid with the fancy hockey equipment. Pride and racism did them in. It made them underestimate their opponents.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Loser Victims

It seems almost every night there is a photo of a guy who looks like an extra from Deliverance on the TV news. He has been killed in Afghanistan or Iraq, perhaps in an accident, perhaps by a bomb. This guy was obviously a utter loser who felt the only way his life could have meaning was by hunting people on the other side of the world for sport. He could at least feel superior to them. He could at least lord it over them with the help of superior US military technology. He preferred to kill children and women because they are easier to kill and they make more of a show dying. I rejoice at his elimination from the gene pool.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Losing Side War Criminals

War criminals are primarily people who aided and abetted aggressive (first strike wars) and people who committed particularly cruel or unfair acts like targeting civilians, using banned weapons, torture or group punishment. But in practice, war criminals are the military and political leaders of the losing side. No matter what the leaders of the winning side did, they are never prosecuted.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Loyalty Creates Blindness

Human tribal loyalty is so strong that one nation will perceive an illegal act as a war crime and another will perceive it as noble and heroic service to one’s country. A case in point. America illegally invaded both Iraq and Afghanistan unprovoked using counterfeit evidence. This is the exact same crime Nazi Germany committed invading Poland. Americans see the those who participated in the first crime as national heroes protecting American freedom and the second as war criminals. The Germans see those who participated in the first as war criminals and the second as national heroes (at least, they did at the time).

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Loyalty to Villains

One of the things I find extremely repulsive about humans is the way they support wars, even when their side is completely in the wrong and is behaving inexcusably badly. They don’t care. It is all about team loyalty. Stealing resources from your neighbours is mandatory when you are powerful enough to get away with it. Humans have no more morality than army ants. We feign horror at how Nazis could possibly behave so badly, when nations today are behaving even worse. This is normal human behaviour. We are such a spiteful species, that it is only a matter of time until we drive ourselves extinct.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lying About The Motives For The Afghan War

Americans admit that there are only at most 200 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. That suggests their reason for spending billions each year to occupy the country has nothing to do with Al Qaeda.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lying About Motives For War

American invaded Afghanistan and occupied for over a decade giving the reason they suspected bin Laden was there. Later then discovered he was in Pakistan. Did they invade and occupy Pakistan? Nope. Did they leave when there were less than 100 Al Qaeda left in Afghanistan? Nope. Did they leave Afghanistan when they learned bin Laden was not there? Nope. Did they leave when bin Laden was dead? Nope. This inconsistency suggests the Americans were lying all along about their reasons for invading and occupying Afghanistan. Such lying about the true motives for war is the norm. War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lying About Nukes

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld lied about Saddam having nukes. Further, they lied that the intelligence people had erred. The triumvirate never had any credible evidence, but went ahead with the invasion anyway for totally different reasons. You know this is so for many reasons:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Magic Coat

What is the reaction a mother has on learning her son has been killed in a the act of committing a crime such as looting, torturing a crippled man who could not speak English, murdering an old lady, bombing a school, or raping a child? Grief? Shame? Nope. Pride! She holds her head high and brags how her son sacrificed his life for God, country, freedom, liberty and justice. What is the magic that allows to so delude herself? It is just a coat, also known as a military uniform.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Major Malik Nidal Hasan

No matter how much you may disapprove of Major Malik Nidal Hasan shooting 31 American soldiers at Fort Hood, this was not an act of terrorism. By definition terrorism only refers to killing civilians. Personally, I see it as an act of treason. Hasan, acting as a psychiatrist was horrified at the stories returning soldiers told him of what they did to children in Afghanistan and Iraq and decided he had to switch sides and kill the killers to protect the kids. Though legally he almost certainly be convicted of murder, he was motivated by defence of innocents, a legitimate excuse for murder if the attack is imminent.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Making the World a Better Place

Republicans claim they are spending billions to make Afghanistan a better place by bombing its inhabitants. Yet they won’t spend a dime for school lunches, or a penny for malaria control in Rwanda. It seems they have largess only for projects that make corrupt arms contractors rich and kill people, where they can plunder trillions in oil or minerals as a side effect.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Male Pride

The primary motivation now for fighting the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is male pride. The pro-war faction don’t want to admit that even with unlimited budget they cannot defeat a small band of what they consider their racial inferiors. Granted, withdrawal means wounded pride, but persisting with the occupation means more people maimed and killed on both sides just to procrastinate the emotional pain of admitting their enemies/victims will never say uncle no matter how viciously they are bombed or tortured. Americans give lip service to Christianity, but the Afghans and Iraqis truly do believe they cannot die.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Mass Crucifixions

Given that the Americans and Canadians have used just about every form of torture and illegal warfare in Afghanistan (and Iraq), it is a wonder they have not tried mass crucifixions as depicted in the movie Spartacus.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Master Race Crap

Hitler managed to con the German people into thinking Germans were the master race, and that when they invaded other countries, the Nazis were doing them a favour. In Hitler’s view, the invasions to subdue lesser races were Germany’s moral duty. We laugh at German gullibility. Yet dozens of US military people have, with a straight face, assured me they invaded then occupied Afghanistan then Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis plundering their resources purely out of an altruistic desire to serve their victims.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Master Race Lie

How did Hitler convince his fellow Germans it was perfectly OK to invade Poland and other neighbours? He convinced them that Germans were the master race and thus had right to confiscate lebensraum (living room). Hitler was not the only person to pull this filthy stunt. The Japanese military leaders convinced the Japanese they were superior to all other people’s and hence had a natural right to conquer other nations. Israeli Jews convinced themselves they were God’s chosen people and hence have a right confiscate by force the land of others. George Bush convinced Americans they were #1 and hence had a natural right to confiscate the oil and other resources of Afghanistan and Iraq. He even convinced them they had the right to torture children and use all manner of banned weapons on civilians and to treat the Geneva Conventions of war as quaint (Not even Hitler did that.) Bush turned his resource wars into religious crusades against Islam to intensify the we-vs-them brutality and self-righteous smugness.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Maudlin Funerals

I am sick of the maudlin ceremonies to mark the deaths of soldiers. To a man, they were admitted war criminals, who aided and abetted illegal aggressive (first strike) wars. Since Nuremberg, that has been a capital (hanging) offence. They got what they damn well deserved. Why did they volunteer to go half way around the world to kill people who were no threat to them or their families? Very simply because they were bullies. More than anything else they wanted to bully, rape and kill people. The military let them do that with minimal risk of prosecution. They lied to you that they were protecting their homeland, but they knew perfectly well their victims could not possibly mount an invasion of Canada or the USA. With modern war-by-remote-control weapons they were gleefully and sadistically shooting fish in a barrel. These people are the scum of the earth and we should be glad to be rid of them. When soldiers come home, they smile and pretend to be human, fooling friends and relatives, but they know what they did and that is why so many of them go psychotic harming the families that spawned them or egged them on.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Measuring Evil

You have no idea how evil a man can be until he has absolute power of life or death over others and by extension the power to rape, torture, bully, steal and extort, in other words until you see how he behaves after he has volunteered for the military.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Meddling

The Harper government has decided it will prosecute anyone who fights on the wrong side of any foreign conflict. I think it is none of their business. Imagine if America had prosecuted all those who joined the rebels/terrorists in the Spanish civil war against Franco? In 1937, Canada made it illegal for Canadians to become involved in the conflict. I am pretty sure posterity will look with more jaundiced eyes on Israel than Harper does now. Right now, Harper encourages those who fight for Israel, but in future, posterity could well consider the Israelis the bad guys. Most of these conflicts are none of our business. Our job to act as neutral mediator, not to cheer on the dog fight, placing bets on one side.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Melioidosis

I was pleased to learn that even after all these years, American soldiers are continuing to come down with a nasty contagious disease called Melioidosis that they were exposed to long ago butchering peasants in the paddy fields of Viet Nam. It presents like tuberculosis with skin ulcers. You could look on it as the result of bad karma for the soldiers and those that encouraged them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Mentally Ill Soldiers

When soldiers keep reenlisting despite the horrors, we have either a sadist or a masochist suffering from Stockholm syndrome. In either case they are mentally ill.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Merely Better

Though Obama is clearly better than the alternatives, he is still far from acceptable. The biggest problem is he billed himself as peace candidate. He wound down the Iraq war and simultaneously cranked up the equally illegal, equally pointless, Afghan war. He lied with the gusto of George W. Bush about the value of the war. He claims it is bringing democracy. Yet even after 16 years, the Afghans live under a dictatorship and suffer under the same Shari’a as ever. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls Afghanistan a narcostate. The dictator that Bush chose, Hamid Karzai, is the most corrupt politician on the planet. Obama still pretends publicly he is a fine fellow. This suggests that Obama is in the pocket of the defence industry, or possibly living in terror of the out-of-control defence contractors like Xi who would not think twice about assassinating him. They don’t care where the wars are, just that the hose into the taxpayers’ pockets grows ever thicker.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Militant: A More Accurate Term

I have noticed that the media are using the generic term militant replacing inaccurate terms like terrorist or insurgent. It does not make specific, unsupported claims about the opposition the way the other terms do.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Military Bases

America has 1000 military bases spanning the globe. They cannot do that and pretend they have no intentions of world control and acting as world policeman.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Military Contractors — the scum of all scum

Military contractors are remarkably immoral people. Consider some of the things they do routinely:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Military Corruption

On 2013-01-19 on the CBC radio show The House Lt.-Gen. (Retired) Andrew Leslie pointed out that the Harper government spends $3.25 billion a year on the military. He also pointed out that the yearly budget for consultants and professional services has increased by $450 million since 2010. Further, money spend on the army itself, such has training has dropped 22%, even after you discount the drop from the wind-down of the Afghan war.

Leslie is concerned about impaired readiness. I am concerned about corruption. The military is the ideal place to hide kickbacks to political donors. The military is not required have to anything to show for its expenditures, such a bridge or sewer system. Further, the government can invoke secrecy at any time to block investigation of its criminal activity. We have seen how when the Americans over-used consultants in Iraq and Afghanistan, it immediately lead to monumental corruption.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) source

Military Precision

Military precision is an oxymoron. Consider: when a civilian contractor demolishes a building almost never is anyone injured. When the military does it, there is almost always collateral damage — a weaseling term to hide the fact they usually kill non-combatants including children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Military Right To Lie

The military almost never tells the truth. They reserve their most fiery ire for those who expose their lives. They believe they have the right to mislead the public to get them to support military policy, e.g. resource wars.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Military Shrinkage

The good news is since 1955 the number of people employed in the US military has dropped from 18 per 1000 to 5. The bad news is the arms have increased so much in expense and sophistication than the USA can destroy the entire planet many times over, using any of a number of means.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Military Spending

Americans baffle me. They think massively increased military spending each year is mandatory. Yet the USA already spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined — most of whom are allies. Who is it Americans are afraid will invade? space aliens?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Military Spending Is Pathetic Stimulus

The least efficient way to stimulate the economy is with military spending. Why?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Military Video Games

The military heavily invested early on in video games. They realised they would create a generation who could kill without conscience. Further, the games were effectively flight simulators for future drone controls. One of the side effects has been the creation of people who also like shooting kids and theatre audiences without conscience.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Military Worms

Military men submit completely to their superiors. They behave with exaggerated subservience. They seek out and voluntarily give up their freedom. They are willing slaves. They will even kill children for no more reason than a superior told them to. This is the penultimate in wimpitude, yet oddly these man are considered hyper masculine. They are psychologically sick, suffering from sadomasochism. It is similar to homosexual leather kink. I have nothing but contempt for someone who relinquishes his moral compass to become the slave of a revered other. It is similar to what cult members do surrendering to the cult leader.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Mindless Revenge

Americans plan to seek revenge for 2001-09-11 for at least another century, to avenge the deaths of 3500 innocent people. Why do Americans think that killing millions of innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq will go unavenged by a people who are known to hold grudges for millennia. Americans hold the nutty idea the longer the war and crueler and barbaric they are to the Afghans and Iraqis, the sooner America will be forgiven. This is even crazier than Hannibal Lecter’s revenge in Hannibal Rising.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Misaimed Revenge

A Viet Nam vet father who lost a civilian son on 2001-09-11 persuaded the US military to write in loving memory of Jason Sekzer on the side of a 2000 pound bomb and drop it on some Iraqi children who had absolutely nothing to do with 2001-09-11. In fact no Iraqis did. He explained that he wanted someone to pay and did not care who. What a sick, cruel, stupid old fart! How dare he dishonour his son in such a sadistic way. That stupid asshole has created so much misery in his life with his precious ignorance that he feels so proud of.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) Why We Fight

Misery ⇒ Sadism

The more miserable people are, the crueler they are. I think this explains why the most sadistic soldiers live in the Congo.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Misplaced Status

In America, the Coast Guard and the National Guard have the lowest status. Yet they are the ones who save lives and defend the country. It is other services involved in war crimes, stealing resources, torture, killing and raping children. This suggests Americans worship the brute who steals, cheats, tortures and kills for pleasure. America has bought the old caveman ethic of might makes right.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Missing Shame

Other than spawning a son who is a child rapist, about the biggest shame that can befall a family is to have a son who is a serial killer. Yet because of the power of propaganda, parents rarely feel any shame at all when their son (or daughter) did his/her killing for money from the US military.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Misuse of the Term Terrorists

American talking heads, such as Pat Buchanan love to fulminate against the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq who have the temerity to fight back at American soldiers who illegally invaded and occupied their country unprovoked. They want to execute the P.O.W.s without civil trials because, as combatants, they are utterly wicked.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Terrorists are people who kill civilians. Insurgents are people who rebel against the established government. The resistance are people who fight against an occupying army. Americans refuse to call their victims by the proper term — the resistance. Americans refuse to offer their victims the usual Geneva Convention treatment offering the feeble excuse the Taliban don’t have uniforms. Could you imagine civil rights depending on owning a Brooks Brothers suit? What a ludicrous idea!

The Monstrous Lie: Defending Freedoms

It is amazing how many otherwise sane and decent Americans subscribe to the monstrous lie that the Afghan and Iraq wars are about defending the freedom of Americans. Not a single Afghan or Iraqi ever did anything to impair American freedoms. Even Bush admitted Afghanistan and Iraq had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. America attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, not the reverse. Americans are seriously interfering with the freedom of the Afghan and Iraqi people, not the reverse. The real reasons for the illegal wars are:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Morality 101

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Morality of Terrorism

Terrorist revenge attacks against the USA are wrong because they are vigilante justice and because they hurt randomly selected people who did no intentional harm. They are not wrong because the US military routinely commits terrorism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Most Degenerate People

People who burn, torture, maim and kill kids or who help others to do, so are the most degenerate creatures on the planet. This includes every US, Canadian and British soldier who aided and abetted either of the Afghan or Iraq wars, even if they just peeled potatoes. It is amazing how relentless propaganda has managed to convince so many people these perverts are heroes protecting the freedom of the homeland. The propaganda does not require censorship to be effective because of the power of wishful thinking. People are happy to believe flattering lies about themselves, even obvious lies. This self-deception is even more shameful than the Nazi embrace of Hitler’s propaganda since Hitler hid the truth.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Most Serious Crime

It is one thing to shoot a child between the eyes or drop a bomb on them, but killing them by slow torture by burning them alive with napalm or white phosphorus is an order of magnitude more serious crime. The only punishment I can think of that would be remotely severe enough, would be skinning the soldiers alive and dousing them in just enough napalm and white phosphorus that it takes them at least a week to die in excruciating agony.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motivated Terrorists

How is it possible a terrorist could murder innocent women and children? I have two answers:

Many of the American soldiers believe the lie that Afghans and Iraqis attacked on 2001-09-11. That delusion steals them to butcher babies. Some do it out of ordinary psychopathology.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motivating Resistance

An impoverished country, Afghanistan, was able to defeat the Russians and later the Americans partly because Russians and Americans were so contemptuous of Islam that the Afghans considered defeating them as necessary as defeating Satan. Eternal souls were at stake, not just lives.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motivating Terrorists

Americans blame Islamic clerics for convincing terrorists to attack America. Have they forgotten that America illegally attacked and invaded two Islamic countries unprovoked, ignored the Geneva conventions, used all manner of banned weapons, used techniques of war that mainly killed civilians and children and routinely tortured P.O.W.s and other detainees. It would seem natural to me that any young Islamic man would feel obligated to wage war on the USA. In fact it would seem natural that anyone but an oil executive or defence industry board member would feel obligated to try to stop the USA by some means, peaceful or violent. The most effective way for the USA to fight terrorism would be to stop participating in it and thus stop bringing retribution on its head.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motivation for War

When the government starts tugging at your heartstrings to start another war, you can be 100% certain the government is not itself motivated by compassion. They don’t even care about their own citizens. You won’t find the real motivation anywhere on TV or the newspapers. The media are team players. They have to play ball if they want official news tidbits. Find out what that country about to be attacked has that your government wants. Find out what that country did, that is not being mentioned, that pissed off your government. Chomsky might know. The main motive for war is always the same, to reward the arms dealers and military contractors for their contributions/bribes. The question is why did the government pick on some particular country to attack.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motive For Attack

MSNBC hosts wonder aloud how anyone could possibly want to attack America in a terrorist attack. How could they have forgotten America is at war? America invaded Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan torturing and/or killing over a million people to steal their oil and seedstocks. When you hurt people’s kids and relatives that way they have a tendency to want to get back at you.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motive For the Civil War

Most people think the North fought the South in the American civil war to free the slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation did not come until two years into the war. The war was going badly and Lincoln needed the 1,778,975 black soldiers black soldiers. The actual fight was over the south’s refusal to pay taxes and subsequent attempt to secede. Obviously the freed blacks were eager for citizenship, the right to vote, the right to own land, the right to hold office and full equality with whites. However, very few whites north or south were willing to grant those freedoms. They were given some freedoms to thank them for their military service, but over the following decades, the south successfully lobbied to have all those rights taken away. The new labour laws were slavery except in name.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motive for Mass Suicide

It is distressing watching my planet marching toward nuclear war and irreversible climate change that Environment Canada says will be almost as destructive. What is much more depressing is knowing we are doing this primarily for the trivial motive of increased corporate profit. We are like monkeys trapped by greed, unable to let go of the banana. We would sooner die than give up a little profit. Those that run the defence industries and oil companies are clearly insane and should be treated accordingly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motive For Muslim Revenge

The Muslim world has millions of times more reasons to kill Americans than it did on 2001-09-11. The United States used 2001-09-11 as an excuse to make war on any Muslim (e.g. Afghans and Iraqis) not just the ones responsible for 2001-09-11. They have killed millions of civilians. They have ignored the Geneva conventions as quaint. They have routinely tortured POWs. They used banned weapons designed to kill as painfully and slowly as possible. They have stolen all the natural resources of the countries they invaded. Even Nazis did not behave that badly. Americans are such conceited egotists, they don’t see their behaviour as criminal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motive For Secrecy

The US military likes to pretend its secrecy is to hide information from the Iraqis or Afghans. That does not take much technology. It is actually to hide the fact the USA is breaking its own laws, international laws and all moral laws of decency from the American citizen and from the world.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motive for Torture

Even with the combined might of Germany, Japan and Italy attacking, when defeat looked a distinct possibility, the USA did not resort to torture. Yet under Cheney-Bush, under the potential threat of but a tiny band of terrorists, the USA succumbed to the dark side. I don’t believe this was done for practical reasons. It was done for the sexual pleasure of the psychopathic president and vice president. They blocked Judge Hellerstein’s subpoena of the torture and rape tapes the sicko pair were viewing from Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motive For Torture

People torture others because they enjoy torturing them, period. People tortured will say whatever they think will make the pain stop. They will confess any crime, betray anyone, make up any stupid story… Despite silly scenarios on 24, torture does not produce useful information, much less information that can save lives. Torture is illegal. To help sell it to the public, to mollify their natural outrage, FOX and friends produced silly propaganda dramas like 24. I find it hard to believe that Kiefer Sutherland did not understand he was selling his soul by agreeing to star.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motive For War

It is not just a co-incidence that:

One way to deal with the US bully would be for all the OPEC nations to, by surprise, simultaneously stop accepting the petrodollar. The USA cannot very well invade everyone at once. However, like a Mafia don, the USA might pick a random victim to beat the crap out of.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motives For the Afghan War

3 months before 2001-09-11, the US threatened the Taliban that if they did not agree to form a federation with the Northern Alliance and built a pipeline to take Caspian oil to the sea, there would be military repercussions. The Taliban were told they had a choice of a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs. Three months later, on 2001-10-07, the USA made good its threat and invaded Afghanistan. The key fact is the invasion was planned long before 2001-09-11. 2001-09-11 and terrorism were just a convenient cover for yet another resource war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motives for Terrorism

Every time there is a terrorist attack or terrorist attempt on Canada, Britain or the USA, the media make comments of the form:

I would like to point out this is not so. It is mass self deception. The media conveniently forget the illegal aggressive (first strike) Afghan and Iraq wars where the west killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. It is normal for a country attacked, or its sympathisers, to fight back. Disingenuous surprise at this obvious fact is acting like a Pythonesque twit. Why do they fight back?

Obviously, the west should do everything to deter such attacks, but they should not deceive themselves that the attacks are the work of madmen. They should also keep their eyes open to their part is motivating the attacks rather that deceiving themselves they have been perfect Boy Scouts.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motives For Terrorism

I have heard terrorism experts talking from all over the world. They nearly all make the same error. They presume terrorists have no motive for their attacks. The experts claim terrorists simply hate the west for no reason.

I find this astounding. Surely terrorism experts would have completed a deep study of the motivations of terrorists. They are not mysterious. Bin Laden explained his reasons. The terrorist recruitment sites give their reasons. The reasons are obvious: the United States illegally and unprovoked attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, killed millions of people, mostly children, used banned weapons and routinely used torture then sold off the oil. Further, the west has supported Israel in taking Palestinian land and funded its apartheid system. These are not classified secrets.

We can’t very well commit atrocities like those and expect the victims to be totally cool with them. My question is, are these experts really that stupid, or are they just following the party propaganda line?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Motives To Re-Enlist

Any soldier who has been to Afghanistan or Iraq knows without any doubt that the foe would utterly incapable of mounting an invasion against the USA. So why do they re-enlist? The conditions are appalling. It can’t be to defend the USA. Is it because they are addicted the drugs so freely available, they are addicted to bullying and killing whomever they please using whatever sick means they chose, they are addicted to raping children, they are addicted to torture, they are addicted to using banned weapons such as white phosphorus to kill their victims in the most slow and painful ways? All their relationships back home have died. They are just waiting for death? All of the above? Power corrupts.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Mouse Trap Metaphor

The Tomcat Home Rat Trap is a beautiful metaphor for American attitudes to the children of Afghanistan and Iraq killed by the American occupation. The advantage of the trap is it does not let you see the dead rat or learn the mechanism by which the rat was killed. Deliberate ignorance somehow assuages the conscience.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Muggers Pleading self-defence

I have to laugh contemptuously at Americans who tell they invaded Iraq motivated out of self-defence because the Iraqis dared to shoot back at Americans who invaded their country. This is like a mugger pleading self-defence because his victim failed to hand over his wallet without a fight.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Murder Is Worse Than Advertised

Murder is such an arrogant crime, especially in war. One person judges another on some narrow criteria and blocks them from ever after having another experience. Often the person killed did nothing wrong at all. They were just in the way because the knew something, owned something or blocked the murderer from getting something he had no right to.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Murdering in their Sleep

Robert Bales confessed to butchering 9 Afghan children and 7 adult civilians as they slept. He will probably try an insanity defence saying he had a sudden psychotic break. If I were on the jury, this would probably not fly with me. He had three tours of duty killing civilians in ones and twos. That shows plenty of premeditation. The evidence that he had collaborators will also throw a monkey wrench into that defence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Murderous Presidents

Even the most peaceful president kills hundreds of thousands of victims. Perhaps if presidents kept the heads of their victims pickled in jars, their deeds would be recognised as murder.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Muslim Revenge

Of course, Muslims want to wring American necks. Americans attacked them unprovoked, killed and tortured their kids and stole the only thing that had of value — their oil. If Americans don’t like that, they should stop doing so many things that provoke revenge.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

My Mission

From where I stand, this is all motherhood, barely worth stating, hardly controversial, yet people routinely threaten to kill me for saying it. What sort of weirdos favour war, torture, being bullied by corporations, lies passed off as truth or destroying your own life support system? Apparently, the vast majority of Americans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

My Side’s Atrocities

Most people are preoccupied with the atrocities the other guy commits. I am preoccupied with the atrocities my side commits. Why? I am responsible for what my side does, not for what the other guy does.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

A Nation of Child Killers

Americans are funny. They tell me their weapons are best on the planet, the most efficient, the most lethal. They even have unmanned Predator drones to kill by remote control without endangering the killer. They tell me they have spend $4 trillion dollars pounding the rat shit out of Afghanistan and Iraq. They show me videos of US soldiers picking off people on the street like zombies in a video game. They show me videos of smart bombs sliding in a windows and killing everyone in the building. But when I show pictures of some of the casualties, they threaten my life and claim Americans hardly killed anyone. Huh? What were they doing then with all those bombers, predator drones, tanks, rocket launchers etc. They spent nearly all money. Since they fight by remote control, most of those kills will be kids, simply because of the age distribution. Most of the people in Afghanistan are under 15. If you fire into a random building, you will kill mostly kids. This sort of random behaviour was broadcast live on CNN the day the USA invaded Baghdad. Americans watched but it did not dawn on them that those apartment buildings the Americans were blowing up were full of kids. I understood they were because I watched with ex-patriate Iraqis who knew these neighborhoods and knew who lived in the buildings. Americans treated it like a fireworks show. A pox on them all! That a mindless idiot nation!

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nation State Terrorism

Terrorism has been on the rise. The parties committing it are nation states, militant organisations, corporations and individuals. The victims are usually individuals. I suspect there will be a shift toward more individuals committing the terrorism, particularly against corporations. The fury is there. All that is required is a few examples to trigger a wave of copy cats. For example, I predict oil pipelines will be increasingly blown up by individuals. Fish farm nets will be slashed. Bank computers will be hacked. Head offices will be blown up. Homes of executives will be destroyed. Churches will be burned. It would extremely difficult to protect against all forms of terror from all angry individuals. The main anti-terror technique is infiltration of a terrorist organisation. If there is no organisation, there is nothing to infiltrate. The best defence for a corporation is to behave better than its competition and trust the competition will bare the brunt of the anger.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

National Guard Tainted

The considerable honour of enlisting in the National Guard has been lost since such enlistment is now tantamount to agreeing to kill innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq if so ordered.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

National Hypocrisy Day

Memorial Day in the USA and Remembrance Day in Canada should be called National Hypocrisy day. All the vets of Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq are war criminals guilty of a capital crime namely aiding and abetting an aggressive (illegal, first strike) war. The military pretend the fallen died defending their country. They did no such thing. They died stealing the natural resources of other countries. They deserve no more honour than the Nazis hanged at Nuremberg for this exact same crime.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Native Resentment

Native people in Canada seem hostile to whites. They also seem to be mired in poverty. When you study the history of how the American and Canadian governments treated indigenous people historically, it all makes sense. You might expect them to be much more resentful than they are.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Natural Justice for War Criminals

A soldier and his wife deserve no pity or aid when he is crippled or mentally injured. He volunteered for an illegal aggressive war. He did that not to defend Canada but for adventure, bloodlust or money. He is guilty of the exact same crime for which all Nazis were hanged in Nuremberg, namely aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Natural Selection On Humans

Americans are big believers in young earth creationism, so they don’t understand that Darwinian natural selection works on them too. In particular, it works to eliminate from the gene pool, those who get themselves killed or maimed in war. Those who are maimed are impaired in their ability to find mates and have children. The good news is people who get off on hunting fellow humans for sport are gradually being eliminated.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nazi American Soldiers

Severed arm in a mosque The image to the right shows an American soldier displaying a severed Iraqi arm hung in a mosque to terrorise the Iraqi resistance. If the photo were in black and white, you might easily conclude the soldier was a Nazi.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nazi Candidates

A nation that closes its eyes while its military pummels two nations for a decade who are no threat to the USA, fully deserves a president like Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum or Sarah Palin to dismantle their country.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nazi Memorial Day

Should the Nazis have their memorial day? Should they celebrate the battles they won and the grand dream of conquest they fought for and lost? If not, then neither have the Americans any right to celebrate the illegal Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars. All those who participated have broken international law; they are guilty of a capital (death penalty) international war crime, namely aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war. The fallen in those wars do not deserve to be mourned any more than the Nazi war criminals hanged at the end of WWII do. It is high time to stop pretending those in the military served their country, defended freedom etc. They did nothing of the kind. They attacked other nations to help US corporations gain control of natural resources. Personally, they sought adventure and a way to safely slake blood lust. The USA was never at risk from these tiny foes. Those who enlisted in the military are socially acceptable serial killers. Those who were drafted and served were moral cowards. None deserved to be commemorated.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nazi Propaganda Techniques

The Nazis were even better than the Americans at getting people whipped up with enthusiasm for an unjust war. Everyone is familiar with the mandatory heil Hitler salute, which reinforced subjection to Hitler and made clear everyone else was giving obeisance. Hitler responded with a languorous over the shoulder salute. When orating, Goebbels would just start shaking his finger as if chastising an unusually naughty child, but he would keep going without a pause for minutes at a time with a very fast cadence. I suspect the intent was to trigger primal fear of parental disapproval. Sometimes he would just shake his hand the same way. He also did some motions that were limp wristed and looked a bit like magician gestures. Perhaps these were for riveting attention.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nazi TV Heroes

Watching American TV news is so surreal. It is as if the Nazis had won WWII. They interview admitted war criminals and torturers and treat them with the respect due national heroes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nazis vs Americans

Hitler hid the facts from his people and threatened with death or worse those that questioned his version of reality. In contrast, every American has access to the facts necessary to understand his country illegally invaded two countries on false pretences. He knows his country deliberately sent the earth into an extinction event with global warming via extravagant greenhouse gas emissions. And, with very few exceptions, American citizens cheered their country on in its execrable ways. That is why I hold Americans in far greater contempt than I hold the Germans in Nazi Germany.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nazis With a Texan Accent

Most people when they think of Nazis think of German accents, goose stepping and swastikas. These are just the symbols of one particular flowering of Naziism. The heart of Naziism is unrepentant lying, scapegoating, extreme nationalism, claiming to be #1 in God’s eyes, total lack of compassion for the weak, ruthlessness and sadism. You have seen it flower again recently, this time with a Texas accent.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

naïve Americans

Are the American military lying or are they really so naïve they believe the Iraqis will successfully fight a war for them they could not win in 15 years? Why would the Iraqis have any interest in fighting the enemies of a country that plundered them and killed millions of their relatives? If the Iraqis thought they could win, they would fight America too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

naïveté

Any time you have discounted an atrocity story on the grounds you could not believe that people could be that cruel, you were being pathetically naïve.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Negotiating with North Korea

If the USA wants North Korea to give up nukes, they will have to give the North Koreans a strong guarantee the USA will not obliterate them as they did Afghanistan and Iraq. Apparently nukes are the only deterrent sufficiently powerful to stop the Americans from invading and scooping up all the resources.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich is a scumbag. He is deliberately fomenting bad blood between Christian and Islamic Americans for his own political benefit. Hitler used the same filthy trick, greasing his way to power on the backs of Jews.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nixon’s Betrayal

Nixon campaigned on ending the Viet Nam War, but when he got into office, he escalated it. The irony is he was not impeached for than massive lie, but was driven from office by Watergate, his coverup of a bit of espionage.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Defence

It is astounding how many Americans believe the lie that US soldiers are defending America in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They know that the USA attacked both those countries unprovoked. They know that first strikes are illegal. They know those countries have no navy, air force or weapons with which to attack the USA. They know the USA routinely tortures POWs. They know the USA considers the Geneva conventions quaint. If they read the foreign press, they also know the USA uses banned weapons that even Hitler did not use. These Americans are no better than Nazis patriotically pretending Germany’s war crimes were justified.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Excuses to Murder

Imagine a future where wearing a uniform is no longer an excuse to murder.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Honour for Afghan Vets

Vets of the Afghan war are war criminals, in the strict, literal, legal sense, who have all openly committed a capital crime, even if they just aided and abetted the war without killing anyone. Just as we do not fête admittedly guilty criminals on death row, we have no business honouring Afghan vets, alive or dead. We should treat them the same contempt we treat civilian child murderers and rapists.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Pity

In Canada, veterans disproportionately suffer from alcoholism, PTSD and homelessness. I have no pity for them. When they enlisted for Afghanistan, they knew perfectly well Afghanistan had not attacked Canada or any of our allies. They knew Afghanistan had no means to attack Canada. They knew they were behaving analogously to the Nazis invading Poland. Why were they so eager? the money, the adventure and the opportunity to rape and kill without consequences. They deserved far worse consequences than homelessness.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Reason To Continue

I have yet to hear a single plausible reason for continuing the Afghan war, much less a reason why it is the best way to spend those billions.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Ref

We all know how young athletic men with high testosterone levels behave in a football or hockey game. Imagine how they would behave without a referee! War is an athletic contest with lethal weapons and no referee. Why then are we surprised at torture and other flagrant violations of the Geneva convention rules of war?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Such thing as Altruistic Murder

There is absolutely nothing noble about invading a country and torturing/killing its people for 16 years and 6 months to force them to accept the worlds biggest drug lord and most corrupt war lord, Hamid Karzai, as their dictator, give up their religion and hand over their oil and minerals. All manner of slimy liars in America and Canada, including the leaders of both countries, try to disguise this occupation as self-defence, liberation and altruism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Surrender

Ask people who were alive in 1939 how they felt about Hitler. They will tell you he was such an awful man that there was no possibility of surrender under any circumstances. I submit the people of Afghanistan and Iraq feel the same way about the Americans. Surrender is unthinkable. Why would they feel this way?

If you live in the USA, you will probably disagree with some of the items on that list. But that is irrelevant when figuring out how much opposition to expect from the Afghans and Iraqis. People outside the USA have a much dimmer view of America’s behaviour than Americans have of themselves. What counts is what the Afghans and Iraqis think in determining how likely they are to surrender.

Hitler did some pretty nasty stuff, but his list is considerably shorter. No wonder the Afghans and Iraqis refuse to surrender! Further the victims of America’s invasions have been previously toughened by living under the domination of Saddam and the Russians. They have suffered far too much to give up now. As Napoléon said How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Sympathy For the Devil

Radio shows often broadcast sad tales of veterans and beg for funds for support and PTSD treatment. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. I think they should rot in jail. Why? Because they are war criminals. These people volunteered to go half way around the world to kill children and civilians in Afghanistan who were no threat whatsoever to Canada. They used banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). What sort of sadist would do such a thing? They claim they were defending Canada, but even the stupidest of them knew Afghanistan did not attack Canada. They did it because they enjoyed killing, raping and bullying people.

What they did violated international law. It is a capital (hanging) crime to participate in any way (even peeling potatoes) in an aggressive (first strike) war. Every Nazi hanged at the end of WWII was charged nothing but participating in an aggressive war.

I am not holding my breath waiting for Canada to hang its war criminals. However, in the meantime, I reserve the right to request my tax dollars do nothing to benefit them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Threat Ever

You know that Afghanistan and Iraq never were any threat to the USA because the military talks of withdrawing or ending the occupation not surrender.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

No Trial?

Is it not somewhat hypocritical to assassinate bin Laden without a trial even a trial in absentia, all in the name of preserving constitutional freedom?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Non-heroes

In WWII, the allies were keen on killing civilians, including women, children and babies. They would do this even if it meant distracting resources away from more important military objectives. I don’t think this was a particularly admirable thing to do. I think much of the admiration for those who fought WWII is unjustified.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Non-Proliferation

Three countries have refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty: India, Pakistan and Israel. Oddly, the USA has helped fund the nuclear programs of all three countries.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Not Defence

Canada has been butchering civilians in Afghanistan for 16 years, claiming we are doing it to protect our freedoms. However, the Afghans have killed exactly 0 Canadian civilians in all that time. The only freedoms Canadians have lost were those squelched by Stephen Harper. The war is clearly a gigantic lie to cover up the cynical plundering of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Not Just Hitler

There is so much focus on the Jews in the concentration camps, that we forget gays and Roma people were treated equally badly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

NRA works for Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda should tithe 90% of its income to the NRA. The NRA is able to kill off Americans far more efficiently than it can.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nuclear Attack Sirens

Circa 1961, when I was 13 years old, Canada installed a string of 1700 early warning nuclear attack sirens. They had a distinctive baleful sound that could not be confused with any other siren. The sirens had a dry run test one day while we were in school. The idea was we had at most 20 minutes to get home and die with our parents. I lived 4 km (2.49 miles) away. I asked what was the point where I died: at school, at home or somewhere in between. I got an irritated scowl, but no answer in response. One morning, about a year later, in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, of 1962-10-14 sirens went off. We turned on the radio for news. It was dead. Cold war tensions were high at the time. I figured this was it. I made my bed and went out to sit on a giant granite outcropping in the front yard. From there I could see the entire harbour and the entire city of Vancouver and its environs. I waited for the bombers to come. I was disgusted with my fellow man for creating weapons with such an idiotic purpose as killing us all. I waited and waited. Nothing happened. It turned out the radio not working had a perfectly ordinary explanation and we were told the sirens had gone off because the damp (It rained half the year in West Van) had short circuited them. Ever since, I have been a strong anti-nuclear advocate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nuclear China

How can anyone trust China to make fail-safe nuclear weapons when they can’t make a kettle that lasts a year?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nuclear Defense

If the US is attacked with nukes, they will be smuggled in. ABMs (Anti-Balistic Missiles) will be useless. Retaliation will be useless since there will be no clear attacker. The easiest way to defeat a defense is to bypass it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nuclear False Alarm

I was a 14-year old boy living at the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 October in West Vancouver, BC Canada. I was quite frightened. I figured we would all die that day, so I uncharacteristically did not do my homework. The Diefenbaker government had installed nuclear war warning sirens that sounded a bit like foghorns. A few weeks earlier we had a nuclear war drill. I asked the teacher What is the point of going home?. We would just die there anyway. He had no answer.

That morning the sirens went off. I turned on the radio for details. There was no sound at all, not on any station. My three younger sisters all started wailing, We are all going to die. My Dad angrily snapped, Shut up. There must be some logical explanation.

There was a huge volcanic rock in the front yard. I made my bend and went out and sat on it and had a magnificent view of the Vancouver harbour. I waited for the jets to come. I waited and waited. They did not show up.

It turned out moisture had shorted and triggered the sirens and the tube radio was simply broken. Kennedy secretly agreed to remove his missiles from Turkey and Khrushchev agreed to remove his missiles from Cuba. It is hard for anyone today to understand what it was like to be so close to a pointless nuclear war, fueled by the testosterone of assholes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nuclear Proliferation

On 2002-01-19, in the SOTU, the USA announced its intention to eliminate the axis of evil (Iraq, Iran and North Korea). It then invaded Iraq and bombed it to rubble. Iraq had no WMDs. North Korea developed primitive nukes. The USA left it entirely alone. Iran enriched uranium but did not develop a nuclear weapon. The USA threatened to bomb it, but so far has not carried through.

Given that nukes are a rational response to threats of annihilation, if we don’t want Iran and North Korea developing nukes we (including Israel) should stop threatening to annihilate them. Further, if we want others to give up nukes, we should give them up ourselves.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nuclear War

Sane people will never start a nuclear war. The consequences are too horrible even for the winner of a completely successful surprise attack.

However, Christians and Muslims are not sane. They imagine destroying this world will bring on a better one. We should never let them near nukes. Unfortunately, most of the US military are nuts, infected with the Christian virus. They work hard to infect new recruits with it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

A Nuke-free Middle East

If the USA thinks it is ok to strangle a country financially in order to prevent it from getting nukes, surely it is ok to strangle a rogue state financially in order to get them to give up nukes they hold illegally. The middle east cannot be stable until there are no nukes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Nukes Lie

George W. Bush illegally invaded Iraq on the grounds that Iraq has nuclear weapons. This was bogus on many grounds:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nukes Seem Safe

To the public, nuclear weapons seem quite safe, but that is only because they are never permitted to learn about accidents, near misses, security breaches, mental breakdowns or countries threatening each other with their use.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Nutty Americans

Americans are utterly nuts. They deny themselves fire fighters, sewers, schools, police, jobs… so they can blow $3 billion a month — at least $30,000,000 per goat herd Al Qaeda in Afghanistan each month. (The money is really going for corruption.) How could a people be so stupid as to pay such a ridiculously high bill for such a trivial war?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama = Cheney Light

Obama usually avoids the bellicose rhetoric of the Cheney-Bush-Rumsfeld era, but he shovels the same amount of cash to the mercenaries and military contractors. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars are killing people faster than ever before. Peace is no closer.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama Is Also A War Criminal

Obama is huge improvement over W., but he is still a war criminal. Why? He is escalating the illegal Afghanistan war. America originally attacked Afghanistan unprovoked. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. The official story is bin Laden, a Saudi, masterminded 2001-09-11 and Pakistan bankrolled it. Even Obama admits there are only 100 Al-Qaeda left in the country.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama Bigger Terrorist Than Osama

Terrorism is defined as killing civilians with the intent of changing their political affiliation. Thus Obama is a much bigger terrorist than Osama since he ordered killed far more civilians. However, because of the magic of mass communications, people pretend Obama’s murders don’t count as terrorism. One explanation is that Americans think only attacks against Americans count as terrorism. Lives of people from other countries, especially third world countries have no values and hence killing them for any reason does not count as terrorism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama, Peace Candidate

Obama billed himself as a peace candidate. He wound down the Iraq war to 50%, but he cranked up the equally pointless Afghanistan war to 200%. It is possible Obama is a simple liar, but I think the problem is the power of the defence industry. They have so much money, they can buy elections or assassinate anyone who gets in their way. Obama negotiated with them. That was the best deal he could get.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama, Superspy

Obama cannot be trusted on the matter of domestic spying. On his watch, the NSA and the National Geographic put out a propaganda video called Inside the NSA: America’s Cyber Secrets. In it the top six brass in the NSA swear up and down they do not spy on American citizens and further it would be unconstitutional and impossible for them to do so. Of course, Edward Snowden proved that a bald-faced lie. Then the NSA tried to excuse its blanket spying on American citizens by pointing out they once derived useful information from spying on suspected terrorists is Yemen, which has absolutely nothing to do with spying on American citizens. He knowingly violated the US constitution. He has no right to remain in office.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama’s Big Lie

Obama’s outrageously big lie is that the USA is fighting Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to protect the USA. The US military estimates there are less than 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and they are fighting with homemade roadside IED s, hardly a weapon suitable for mounting an attack on the USA. America is occupying Afghanistan because the arms industry insists on an ongoing expensive war and because Obama wants Afghanistan’s minerals and oil.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama’s Lie

Even president Obama pretends to be under the delusion it is legal for the USA to attack any country it pleases merely on the grounds that country or any small group of its citizens might attack at some point in the future, even when that country has never attacked and has no means to attack. He has no excuse. He has the legal training to know better. It is as silly as pleading self-defence for axe murdering your neighbour because, in your paranoid fantasies, he might someday attack you in your sleep with his lawnmower.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama’s Nazi Defence

If Obama had defended the Nazis at Nuremberg, his defence would go like this. Come on, fellas. Let’s forgive and forget. Let’s Look Forward™, After all, all those accused were acting with the best of motives. Further, they were just following orders. We have an economy to rebuild. We can’t dwell on the past.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama’s Tiger

Obama has a tiger by the tail. Most of the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are contractor mercenaries. If he lets them go, they will go to the highest bidder, most likely to America’s enemies. Having worked for America, they intimately know her weaknesses.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obama’s Victory

Obama refused to use the military against Russia when it invaded the Ukraine. He wanted to avoid uncontrolled escalation. He told people his sanctions against Russia would work, but they would take time. Nearly everyone accused him of being a wimp. The combined effect of Obama’s sanctions and his policies to drive down fossil fuel prices worked (because Russia’ biggest export is fossil fuels). Putin has been screaming Uncle in the world press repeatedly of late. Yet nobody gives Obama any credit for his relatively pain-free victory.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obesity Implies Drones

Given the obesity epidemic, in the future decades, Americans will have no choice but to fight with drones.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Obsession with Corpses

People spent an enormous amount of effort to find and move the corpse of Lawrence Gordon away from German corpses to be near Canadian corpses. If find this obsession quite creepy and racist. It is fueled by delusions that the dead are haunting the living.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Offensive Military

The USA has not fought a defensive war in 72 years. It is long past time to acknowledge that the military is not primarily for defence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Oil Auction

The American occupation put all of Iraq’s oil resources up for auction to American and European oil interests on the very day Obama announced the end of the Iraq war. No American news organisation commented on the co-incidence. What does this tell you about the ability of Americans to look at themselves honestly?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Omar Khadr

American soldiers illegally invaded Omar Khadr’s native country and tried to kill him. By all the ordinary rules of war and self-defence, Khadr had every right to try to kill his attackers. Further, he was a child soldier age 15. Americans convicted him of terrorism (which is absurd since he did not even allegedly hurt any civilians or try to change their political views by force, the definition of terrorism.) and tortured him for 10 years in Guantánamo as Canada did nothing to rescue him even though he was a Canadian citizen. Harper threatened to hold him prisoner for a further 8 year sentence. He has finally been freed. There is pressure to force him to give his $10.5 million compensation to the families of those who tried to murder him.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Omar Khadr

Omar Khadr did not commit any crime, even you assume he shot two Americans invading his country. The Americans were attacking illegally. They were war criminals guilty of a hanging crime (aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war). Americans convicted him of terrorism (which is absurd since he did not even allegedly hurt any civilians or try to change their political views by force, the definition of terrorism.) He had every right, as a soldier to dispatch the invaders. He should have been treated as a child soldier or an ordinary POW. His detractors say he should have just stood there and let the Americans execute him. He was acting in self-defence. The Americans were waging war. They damn-well should have expected to get shot at. Americans are acting as if they were shot buying ice cream.

People are angry with the government because Khadr is getting compensation for his mistreatment. The government had nothing to do with it. This was a decision of the legal system.

Conservative MP (Member of Parliament) Erin O’Toole says those in prison are presumably guilty, and as such have no civil rights. This is nonsense. We do not allow torturing prisoners, even guilty ones. An MP like him needs to be familiar with Canadian law.

I was horrified by the overwhelming number of orcs who called in to CBC Cross Country Checkup who argued Khadr should have no rights because he was a terrorist. Historian Caleb Carr defines terrorism as killing civilians with the intent of changing their political affiliation. Allegedly Khadr shot a soldier. Khadr was not a terrorist because his alleged victim was not a civilian. Canada has signed international treaties saying we will not torture anyone. Yet, in Khadr’s case, Canadians think torture is perfectly OK, simply because the person tortured was suspected of killing someone in a war. By those rules, it would also be legitimate to torture any Canadian soldier. Canadians as a whole are spitting on the rule of law.

Let us hope the politicians and judges do not cave to the Neanderthal mob mentality.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Omar Khadr

Omar Khadr was a 15-year old Canadian citizen who went to Afghanistan to defend it against illegal American invaders. A group of American soldiers attacked and he allegedly shot and killed one in self-defence. American locked him in Guantánamo torture camp and held him without charge or trial. Legally, Khadr should have been treated as a child soldier or failing that at least as a P.O.W. Canada did nothing to help him and even refused to co-operate in a plea bargain where he could choose between confessing to a long list of crimes and a jail sentence in Canada or indefinite detention. I am absolutely disgusted with both the USA and Canada for their contempt for law. This is pure bully mentality — might makes right. Khadr did nothing wrong. Even if he did shoot an American soldier, he had every right to defend his country of origin and to shoot illegal invaders, especially when they attacked him.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Omar Khadr

The whole Khadr affair makes no sense.

For some reason the Americans decided to make an example of him by ignoring all their own laws.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Omar Khadr Appeal

Here are some of the reasons I think Omar Khadr should win his appeal:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Oops

Almost every day, some warring nation apologises for hitting a civilian target in error. Every bomber has GPS (Global Positioning System) which lets them get 2.17 metres (7.11 ft) positional accuracy 95% of the time. So how do this goofuses manage to routinely hit targets 1 km (0.62 mile) away from the alleged intended target?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Opening Day of the Iraq War

I was with some Iraqi ex-patriates the day the Iraq war started. They naively believed Bush was going to liberate the country from Saddam then leave. What we saw on the TV screen was Americans bombing the residential sections of Baghdad, the familiar neighbourhoods where their friends and families lived back home. They felt deeply betrayed. No doubt most of the people in Iraq felt the same way. After a betrayal like that, the deepest desire of every Iraqi would be to find some way to slit an American throat. Instead of liberating, Americans occupied and plundered. They might as well have been Nazis.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Osama vs Oswald

Compare Osama bin Laden and Lee Harvey Oswald:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Our Atrocities

It never ceases to amaze me how Americans, Canadians and the British go on and on about the terrible things the Germans secretly did 78 years or 103 years ago, but completely excuse and ignore atrocities far worse that they openly do themselves now. What is even worse, the berate the German civilians for not protesting the secret atrocities when they don’t even protest the blatant ones they commit themselves.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Outside Interference

The American military has announced it does not want any outside interference with the internal affairs of Iraq. Oh really? Isn’t the American occupation of Iraq and appointing the provisional government outside interference?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Overkill

In the nuclear arms race, the Americans not only have insisted on having more destructive power than everyone else put together, they have insisted on overkill, more than enough ability to wipe out all life on earth several times over. This grossly excess capacity has no practical use as a deterrent and it greatly adds to the risk of accidental or terrorist-induced nuclear war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Overreacting to 2001-09-11

The USA was so freaked by 2001-09-11 that they created a giant bureaucracy that spent money way out of proportion to the threat and crushed constitutional liberties. The deaths from obesity, tobacco or illegal drugs are each thousands of times higher. However, those dangers are more familiar, hence less scary. The skeptical would claim Americans were cynically stampeded into overreacting that by those who benefited from it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Overthrowing Democracies

America claims its goal is to spread democracy to the world. Yet what do they actually do? They overthrew democracies in Iran, Brazil, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, Haiti, Venezuela… and installed brutal dictatorships. They propped up dictators in Iraq, Indonesia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia… So excuse me if I splutter when you tell me Bush wants democracy in Iraq. He wants what America always wants — puppet control of Iraq’s resources through a dictatorship.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pacification of the Vikings

The Viking were some of the most warlike people in history, yet their descendants are among the most peaceful. How could that be?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Paedophiles, Rapists and Serial Killers: Enlist!

If you are a closeted paedophile, rapist or serial killer and you not that particular about selecting your victims, your best bet is joining the military. They will give you ample opportunity, camaraderie from others who share your obsessions and shield you from prosecution from your crimes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Paranoia Inducer

Imagine a weapon that made people become paranoid and kill each other. From where I stand, someone has already unleashed one such weapon on the USA.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pat Tillman

The Pat Tillman scandal is important only in that it reminds the public that the essential nature of militaries is lying. Whether he was killed by Americans or the resistance is irrelevant because he was a war criminal who had committed a capital crime, namely aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war. Fate sentenced him somewhat ahead of his fellows.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Patching Up Serial Killers

What would you think of a guy who specialised only in patching up serial killers then released them into the world to resume their killing sprees? That is exactly what army medics do.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Patience in Afghanistan

American and Canadian generals have called for patience in Afghanistan. The war has already gone on for 16 years, 6 months and 30 days. Hundreds of billions have been spent pounding the country to rubble and killing millions of children. And the opposition to the invasion is as strong as ever. The Afghans resist the Americans with the same dogged determination and suicidal sacrifice as they did the brutal Russians. WWI took only 4 years, 3 months and 14 days and WWII took only 5 years, 11 months and 14 days to defeat a much better armed and much more dangerous foe. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. Bush said the culprits were Saudis. There is no pressing need to occupy Afghanistan. The invasion has been idiotic from day one. Pride, corruption and resource theft are the main motives to persist. It is time to leave the Afghans in peace. They are no more danger to the USA than they were to Russia.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Patient Arabic Revenge

I once met an elderly Egyptian man. He told me a story. There was a man who owned a store. A rival killed his son just outside his store in a drive-by shooting. Later the rival had an infant son. Nothing happened for 21 years. Then the man killed his rival’s son, outside the rival’s store in a drive-by shooting. He explained to his rival that he waited so that the rival would know what it was like to lose a 21-year-old son.

The Qur’an condemns aggression. If you are attacked, you must give the attacker several chances to make amends. After that, you are encouraged to take extreme revenge.

In Arab culture, revenge may be taken decades or even generations later. There is no forgiving or forgetting, ever, until revenge has been taken.

The United States behaved abominably in the Afghan and Iraq wars. Both aggressive wars were illegal. The USA killed more civilians than combatants, including children. The USA used banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). The USA routinely tortured all detainees. American racism made the US soldiers behave worse than Nazis.

From an American point of view, the wars were all ancient history. From the Arab point of view, those are scores scheduled to be settled.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Patient Revenge

Muslims are much more patient about getting revenge than we North Americans are. Americans committed an unforgivable crime on Afghanistan and Iraq. The revenge for it may come even 100 years from now. I would not be surprised if a decade or so from now vets of Afghanistan and Iraq will start to come down with mysterious diseases and cancers that rot the face. Americans are a boastful people, which tends to make them underestimate their enemies. Over time, the general public will find out the perverted things American soldiers were doing, they will become like lepers. They won’t be able to deny to themselves what they did. Confronting it will drive many of them mad via drugs and alcohol.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pavlovian Conditioning

One of the dirtiest tricks the military use is an old Pavlovian device. They show footage of WWII heroism, then immediately show footage of illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The mind unconsciously transfers the glory of defending the homeland to the modern illegal wars even though they are wars of aggression and resource theft, not defence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Paying Ransom

If you pay ransom to terrorists, you are encouraging them to kidnap more people. Further, you are funding terrorists. That makes you a terrorist too. This why Canada never pays ransom, and prosecutes people who do, confiscating their funds and their businesses. It is tempting to violate the law in your particular case, but in the big picture, you are making things much, much worse for others.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Peace Candidate?

Obama campaigned as a peace candidate. Why then the surge the troops in Afghanistan? Why is the USA, despite being unable to afford two wars, despite there being no military threat from either Afghanistan or Iraq, still occupying Afghanistan and Iraq? Ego and pride. Obama does not want to be perceived as losing a war. So he is willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of people on both sides of the conflict, to create the illusion the USA was able to beat these two tiny countries into abject submission. What he wants to do is impossible because, for Muslims, this is a religious war — ejecting the great Satan. For them, resistance is more important than life itself. They will not give up until every last one of them is killed and even then there are a billion Muslims from all over the world to take up the struggle.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Peace Pipe

Consider the possibility that some wise North American shaman convinced his fellows that the only legitimate way to smoke tobacco was in a peace pipe. He literally made warriors long for peace.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Peer Pressure Atrocities

Just as peer pressure persuaded Germans to avoid noticing the atrocities of the Nazis, modern day Americans do the same thing to avoid noticing their nation is the #1 terrorist nation on earth and that American soldiers are guilty of a capital war crimes, namely first strike attacks on other nations.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pending Landslide

There is a massive landslide pending in the Canary Islands. The next time the volcano Cumbre Vieja blows, it will trigger the landslide. It will create a 91.44 metres (100 yards) tsunami that will obliterate the eastern seaboard of the USA, the Caribbean, parts of North Africa and Western Europe. I think somebody should ensure it is impossible for terrorists to trigger the landslide. Its destruction would make 2001-09-11 look insignificant.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pentagon Lies

The Pentagon makes the preposterous claim it has killed only about 2000 people in Afghanistan. Let’s conservatively say they spent $300 billion on the war. That means they spent $150,000 killing each person. Instead of killing them you could send them on extended holiday on the Riviera for those kind of bucks. This does not make sense. The Pentagon also claim 3190 NATO casualties. NATO has a infinitely larger budget, more advanced arms, high tech armour and drones to kill without possibility of retaliation. How could NATO possibly be sustaining more casualties than the Afghans?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

People I Could Do Without

I am not a Christian, so I can’t very well pray that Yahweh vaporise the following people, however, I think it would be Good Thing™ if they disappeared:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

People Who Favour Kid Killing

I get messages from Americans from time to time who threaten to kill me or wish some horrible death on me because I disapprove of soldiers killing kids and torturing people. This implies they are strongly in favour of killing kids and torturing those who are no threat to the USA. But why? They sometimes express racist hatreds, but those they hate they have never even seen. How is it possible to hate so strongly? I am flattered that they imagine my disapproval will successfully interfere with their sadistic pleasures and that they so desperately crave my approval for their filthy pleasures that I refuse to grant.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Pernicious Addiction

When a people become so addicted to oil that they are willing to butcher and torture tens of thousands of children to get it, you realise we are dealing with an addiction even more pernicious than heroin.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Petrodollar Wars

One of the reasons the USA is eager to find an excuse to annihilate Iran is that Iran has been accepting Euros in payment for oil. Given that Iran’s customers include Europe, Russia and China why shouldn’t Iran accept Euros, rubles and Renminbi? It could be the beginning of the end of the massive exchange commissions the US gets from having the world’s oil transactions transacted in US dollars. No longer, when the US prints money, would it effectively be able to tax (through inflation) all foreign countries that hold American petrodollars. Without massive foreign global petrodollar holdings, the value of the US dollar would collapse. Recall the Ambassador Glaspie incident when in 1990 Bush-41 tricked Saddam Hussein into giving the USA a respectable excuse to invade shortly after Iraq started accepting Euros for oil.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Phase Out Remembrance Day

I would like to see Remembrance day gradually phased out. It glorifies war. It justifies war. It perpetuates hoary attitudes from the days of the British Empire. We dig up and rehash old hatreds with people who are now our friends. It is time to bury these hoary ways of thinking. What makes it worse is the vets of Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq piggy back on the honour. They did absolutely nothing to defend their countries. They were sadists who enjoyed raping, torturing and killing children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Phasing out Remembrance Day

I think it is time to start phasing out Remembrance day. Why?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Philippines

In 1900, America and Spain had a war. The USA won and took over the Spanish colony of the Philippines. The Philippines petitioned President McKinley for independence. Instead, he invaded in order to make the Philippinos submit to being an American colony. He send in 20,000 troops. The Philippinos killed an American soldier. The Americans retaliated with a war crime by executing a village of 1000 people including the women and children. McKinley then send another 20,000 troops, then another 20,000. This pattern is similar to later invasions of Nicaragua, Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Picketing Soldier Funerals

Soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan and Iraq were participating in illegal aggressive (first strive wars). That is a capital international war crime. That makes them war criminals. It makes so sense to bury them with honours. Americans with few exceptions refuse to hear that, however, everyone should be free to speak that unpleasant truth. However, you have absolutely no business disrupting or picketing a private funeral ceremony. It is as improper as barging into a home uninvited or interfering with euthanasia.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Picking on Someone Your Own Size

China threatened war with the USA. Oddly, part of me is eager to see it happen. The USA has been picking on countries 1/10 its size or smaller for the last 60 years. I would be nice to see it get a taste of what it has been dishing out.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Planning to Fail

Consensus holds that the main block to American success in Afghanistan is the weak, corrupt and unpopular Karzai puppet government. Just how is several more years of killing Afghan children supposed to help that situation?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Playing Victim

9/11 Memorial The endless celebration of victimhood on 2001-09-11 is downright pathological. It has lead Americans to do malevolent things they would never normally do. In revenge for 2001-09-11, they attacked two nations who President George W. Bush admitted had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. The 2001-09-11 attacks were over in hours. The revenge has gone on 24/7 for a 16 years and 6 months with no end in sight involving attacks with 25 different types of aircraft. It is madness.

You might argue that Americans support the Afghan war in solidarity with Muslim women. If that were true, American would not be in last place in developed nations in terms of foreign aid. Americans are not generous anywhere else, especially to Muslim women. Further, Americans would not have installed dictator Hamid Karzai allowing him to enforce the same Shari’a law as the Taliban. You might argue that Americans support the Iraq war to overthrow a dangerous dictator. But if that were true, the Iraq war would have ended on 2003-12-13 when Saddam was captured.

What is even crazier is Americans are proud of the fact they used banned weapons, roasted alive innocent Muslim children, routinely tortured detainees, violated the quaint Geneva conventions… The endless craving for revenge, fueled by the cult of victimhood, has turned Americans into monsters even worse than those who attacked on 2001-09-11. The only way to atone for this mega-crime and to ensure America never abuses its power that way again, would be too dissolve the union.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Poetic Justice

American women who went to Iraq and were raped by American soldiers really have no right to complain. They went to Iraq to make lives extremely miserable for Iraqis, who had done nothing to them or America. It is poetic justice.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Poetic Justice

Americans spread violence in the third world by selling heat-seeking missiles for profit. It is poetic justice that these very missiles have found their way to the Taliban to shoot down American helicopters.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Poetic Justice

There is some cosmic justice is the way American soldiers contaminated themselves with carcinogenic dioxin when they tried to defoliate Viet Nam with Agent Orange.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Poetic Justice for GWB

Poetic justice for George W. Bush might go something like this: He is kidnapped by an organisation dedicated to revenge for the children killed or tortured in the Iraq war. Bush is tied naked to a chair and children come in armed with very sharp potato peelers. Their job is to remove as much of his skin and scalp as they can. Then others come in carrying misters which the mist his skin. The misters contain such things as sulfuric acid, napalm and white phosphorus. They have fireplace lighters to set the napalm afire. Then another group come in and attach a cluster bomb to each leg. All retreat behind a plexiglass shield to watch the surgical removal of his legs. Then teens toss cinder blocks onto his body, taking care not to crush his skull. They bury him in a pyramid of blocks perhaps 2 metres (6.56 ft) tall. They leave him there in the dark, without food or water until he slowly dehydrates to death. His punishment is but a minute fraction of the suffering he inflicted on the children of Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pointless Shooting

If there is a fire in the kitchen, granted you have to do something, but rarely will shooting someone improve matters.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Post the Score

The point of war is to kill and injure as many of the other side as possible. The score should be posted continuously as in any other testosterone-fueled contest. Maybe the folks who do scoreboards for baseball games could invent some other statistics to continuously track to make the game more interesting.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Postponing Withdrawal

One of the silliest arguments I have heard for prolonging the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is that people will be killed in the chaos following a withdrawal. Of course, people will be killed. That became unavoidable on day one of the war. Far more people die in war than in peace, especially a war that goes on and on year after year. Postponing the end of a war won’t avoid that period of chaos. A protracted war will just kill more people on all sides.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Potential Attack

The royal wedding fills me with dread. Prince Harry is a war criminal. He participated in the illegal first strike war in Afghanistan. This is a capital crime, though it is unlikely a wealthy royal would ever be prosecuted. I can envision the people of Afghanistan who have lost millions of sons and daughters to the US-British invasion taking revenge on Britain by killing Prince Harry during the wedding festivities. It would be an absolutely crushing blow.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Potential Terrorist Targets

The Homeland Security people designated 80,000 potential terrorist targets including a tourist trap called Weeki Watchee Springs in Florida where women swim about in tanks dressed as mermaids.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Power Drill Torture

Michel York The image to the right is Michael York. In the 1968 film The Strange Affair, criminals attacked P.C. Peter Strange, played by Michael York, by boring holes in his cheeks with a power drill. Now we discover the Bush administration used power drills as an interrogation technique.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Power Leads to Torture

Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment should teach us never to be surprised when soldiers or prison guards needlessly bully and torture. It requires constant supervision to prevent. But why do they do it? Why do humans get such pleasure inflicting pain on the weak? It may be a way for a powerless individual to express personal power. It may be an ancient hunting urge resurfacing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Precise Bombs, Random Targets

Rumsfeld liked to brag about the pinpoint precision of American bombs. What he did not mention was most oft the time the targets were picked pretty well randomly and if you hit a house anywhere in the third world, it will be half full of children. In WWI 10% of the casualties were civilians. In the Iraq war it is 90%, despite these so-called precision weapons.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pretending Iraq Attacked America

American vets (funded by the oil industry) have an ad campaign where they whine that the resistance in Iraq now have armour piercing weapons (where previously Americans could pick them off like fish in a barrel with almost no fear of reprisal). They refer to the Iraq resistance as the enemy and terrorists as if they had attacked the USA. They call for the US military to protect America from Iraqis as if the Iraq resistance had attacked America. America attacked Iraq unprovoked and sold off the spoils to American and European corporations. This is a big lie worthy of Joseph Goebbels. The odd thing is all but the youngest Americans are fully aware it is a lie, yet pretend to believe it anyway. This is unforgivable.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pretending Not To Be Terrorists

I find it hard to believe Americans are sincere when they tell me Afghans who bomb American invading soldiers are terrorists, but American soldiers invading Afghanistan who bomb women and children are not. It is merely regrettable collateral damage. Surely some of them know the definition of terrorism: killing civilians with the intent of changing their political affiliation.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pretending Not To Provoke

Americans hamstring themselves by telling themselves downright silly stories about why their enemies attack them. They refuse to even consider their own acts of provocation. Clinging to delusions about your enemies is no way to defeat them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pretending to Support Evil

Every public figure gives lip service to the idea that the American solders in Afghanistan and Iraq is bravely protecting American freedom, even those firmly opposed to the war. These are not all morons. Most know perfectly well the USA was the aggressor in both wars. It is like the time of the Inquisition when people had to publicly support the Christian lies just to stay alive.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pretending to Virtue

Around 1700 leaders stopped glorifying war and pretended to long for peace, even though war was thrust on them. This is a step forward. People pretending to a virtue is the first step toward actualising it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pretending The Wars Are Legal

I have yet to find a single American soldier who acknowledges that it is a capital (i.e. hanging) international war crime to aid and abet an aggressive war, namely one where your country strikes first, unprovoked. A few of them understand that it was illegal when Nazis did it, but for some reason they believe Americans are exempt from the law. They tell me, further, that they don’t care if it is illegal because they believe the US will protect them from any possible prosecution. Someone should remind them that is precisely what Nazi soldiers thought too.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pro-War Lunatics

Anti-war folk such as myself are just trying to stop the killing and suffering, especially the killing and suffering of kids. Those who oppose us, for some reason, want more killing and suffering. The way I see it, they have to be mentally unbalanced. They often threaten to kill us, even though we are not interfering with their murders, other than trying to prick their consciences.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Problem With Being a General

Since the days of swords, generals have three problems:

  1. Convincing soldiers to risk their lives to kill.
  2. Convincing soldiers to kill people they have no personal grudge against.
  3. Keeping soldiers in top physical shape ready for battle.

Technology has come to the rescue.

  1. Spear: gives the soldier a little distance.
  2. Arrow: gives the soldier quite a bit of distance. He might not even see the person he kills.
  3. Rifle: gives the soldier even more distance. Can shoot from cover.
  4. Explosives: kills several a people at once. Soldier does not have to select a particular victim.
  5. Dropping bombs: great safety. Victims look like ants. No great strength is needed, though you don’t want grossly obese soldiers since they are hard to fit in aircraft and they require extra fuel.
  6. Drones: complete safety. Illusion of a video game. Allows grossly unfit, physically or mentally disabled or overweight soldiers to participate. Makes it possible to perform assassinations and explicit child murder while denying the consequences.

The military has successfully erased conscience as an inhibiting factor to improper violence. The result is mayhem is spiraling upwards, even in supposed peacetime, without limit. It is only a matter of time until this same violence by drone is directed against one’s own countrymen. It is also only a matter of time until America’s adversaries use low-cost evolutions of the drone in retaliation.

I can just see the egg on the face of the drone unit when their computer is hacked and the lard asses end up killing themselves.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Problems With Drones

There are four problems with drones.

  1. They make war cheap and safe. This lowers the bar to war. There was no strong reason for either the Afghan and Iraq wars. With the drone tool, America can attack any country it has a minor difference with, or threaten to attack.
  2. To the soldier, this is just a video game. He can murder without so much as his heartbeat increasing. This lowers the bar to improper killing, e.g. assassinating other world leaders.
  3. In war, each side is to some extent restrained by the threat of retaliation from the other side for particularly egregious attacks. Drones take away that brake to war.
  4. Any weapons technology you use or your enemies, they will eventually adapt and use against you.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Profitless War

The USA cannot profit from plundering Afghanistan any more than New Jersey could profit from conquering North Dakota.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Profitless War

With politicians screaming about government waste, you think they would be quite annoyed at investing a trillion dollars in a war without a decent financial return. Viet Nam had the world’s largest deposit of tungsten, a metal used for making incandescent light bulb filaments and super-hard steel. Iraq had the second largest reserves of oil, now all auctioned off to western oil companies. Afghanistan had the right of way needed for a major Unocal oil pipeline. So perhaps the wars were not as altruistic an investment in freedom as claimed. The government may not have reaped the benefits, but the corporations who owned the politicians did.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Promoting Christianity

Even though it is unconstitutional, the US military promotes Christianity in its combat troops. Why? Devout Christians believe that they cannot really die. This makes them braver and greater risk takers. Further, since they believe they cannot really kill victims, they are not as reluctant to kill, especially civilians and children. They believe their victims will go instantly to heaven.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Promoting Evil

Republicans promote war, theft of other nations’ natural resources, torture, abrogation of civil liberties, use of banned weapons, letting people without sufficient funds for medical care die, persecuting gays, ensuring the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, permitting corporations to lie to and harm their customers, the replacement of democracy by corporatocracy or theocracy… This is not a political party; it is a demonic cult.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Promoting Nuclear Proliferation

Bush promised to annihilate North Korea and Iran in his axis of evil speech. What else but nukes could deter the USA?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Pronunciation Camps

It is interesting how speech patterns divide the USA into political groups. For example, pro-war people pronounce Iraq as eyerak. People opposed to the war pronounce it eer-rak. Similarly Italian as eye’talian by imperialists or ih-tal’ian for internationalists.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Propaganda Barrage

It pretty obvious there is a propaganda barrage to sell war with Libya, Syria and Iran. I don’t know how the USA plans to benefit from such wars. The one thing I can be sure of, the real motive has nothing to do with lifting oppression and standard of living. The Republicans will not even sacrifice for Americans, much less non-white people on the other side of the globe.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Propaganda Exception

Soldiers murder children and shoot dogs by the tens of thousands. Then they film a tear-jerker documentary about taking one Afghan or Iraqi child to hospital in the USA for some expensive operation or go to great lengths to film bringing back one dog to the USA. This is hypocrisy raised to the Monsieur Creosote level.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Proportional Effort

Harper spent $350 million attacking Libya, which was no threat at all to Canada. He spend $30 million on ebola, which potentially could wipe out 50% of Canadians.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Propping Up Dictators

Other than invading two small countries unprovoked and killing and torturing, waging war by treating the Geneva conventions as quaint, the most shameful thing about being an American is knowing that your country supports dictators who enslave others for America’s financial well being. The hypocrisy would be like acid corroding your heart. How could you possibly love your country?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Prosecute All War Criminals

We will know we are making progress when war criminals from the winning side are also prosecuted.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Prosecuting War Criminals

I am pleased that prosecutions against Jack Straw for rendition and torture are proceeding. Even if it does not lead to Dick Cheney facing trial for the same crimes, it will make Mr. Cheney suffer with dread.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Prosecuting War Criminals

In Germany, men in their late 80s who so much as swept a broom at one of Hitler’s death camps are being prosecuted as war criminals. By the Nuremberg principles, aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war is a capital crime.

In Canada and USA, soldiers who kill children by the thousands in aggressive wars, are fêted as heroes. By international law, they too are war criminals, guilty of a capital (hanging) offence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Protecting Freedom?

In the USA, people often claim that American soldiers in Afghanistan were protecting American freedoms. If that were true, would not Afghanistan have attacked America first, rather than the reverse? Wouldn’t you have heard reports of engagements with al Qaeda rather than the Taliban. The Taliban were running the government of Afghanistan as a Muslim theocracy, minding their own business, when the US attacked them. They had nothing to do with 2001-09-11. Remember, Bush said bin Laden, a Saudi with Saudi cohorts, did it. The Afghans speak Pashto and Farsi. The Saudis speak Arabic. It is ignorant to pretend they are the same people. It is like confusing Spaniards with Russians.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Protection

A modern government protects itself from nationals of countries it has attacked, ecoterrorists, anti-military saboteurs, whistle-blowers etc. by a number of means:

All these methods are designed to catch people who work in groups. They are impotent against the lone wolf who refuses to share any of his plans or thoughts with anyone. He must amass his weapons by theft so there is no record of their acquisition. The American penchant for ensuring every home is equipped with weapons of massive destruction works in his favour.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

PTSD

According to the CBC Ideas Program 25% of US vets get PTSD and cannot work for the rest of their lives. They live on disability pension. This costs the country $6 billion a year. This suggests the USA should be less eager to leap into wars that are not necessary to defend the homeland.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

PTSD

It is a good thing that the wives are getting so much publicity about the hell it is to care for a husband with PTSD. The husbands are crazy with paranoia, fear and jealousy. It may discourage young women from marrying soldiers. It may discourage young sadists from enlisting for the sheer joy of killing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

PTSD

PTSD is extremely common in vets of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Sometimes they commit suicide, and sometimes they kill all their family members with them. That makes no sense to me. Their families bear no guilt for their war crimes. Surely they don’t think their families will starve to death after they suicide. Why would they have come to hate their families so intensely that they murder them all, even the young children?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

PTSD

The thing we fail to notice about PTSD is the victims usually fully deserved their fate.

The people of Afghanistan were no threat to Canada. They did nothing to harm us. We invaded their country illegally. The Canadians who volunteered were sadistic sickos who like torturing and killing with abandon with little chance of legal consequences. They are international war criminals just for their presence guilty of a capital crime, namely aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war.

We should have no more sympathy for them than Nazi concentration camp guards who accidentally gassed themselves.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Punish Soldiers

Torturing children and killing them in extremely painful ways such as with rape. banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). These have all become standard tools of war. In my view, any soldier who commits these war crimes deserves a punishment more cruel than anyone can imagine and this includes all American soldiers who committed these crimes or aided and abetted them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Punishing Innocent Citizens

One of the reasons I despise the USA is the way the will punish or kill the citizens of Cuba or the citizens of Iraq, etc. in the name of helping them because they have a dispute with their leaders. The leaders are not in the least inconvenienced by the attacks. The people have done nothing to deserve this abuse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Punishing Soldiers

I sometimes wonder what would be a suitable punishment for soldiering. I mused that soldiers should be tortured in the various ways they tortured others, then die in the slowest most painful way they killed their victims. I thought it would be fun if suddenly soldiers found themselves naked, without weapons, shelter, food or equipment of any kind. They would be completely at the mercy of the people they had been tormenting/protecting.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Purple Heart

The purple heart is a booby prize. The goal of combat is injure or kill the other guy, not yourself. Logically soldiers should get the medal for every consecutive year they manage without injury, like an AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) years of sobriety lapel pin.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Purpose of the Afghan War

If the true purpose of the Afghan war were to capture bin Laden, the occupation should have ended a few months after the invasion once it was clear bin Laden was not there. But the occupation continued unabated since 2001-10-07. Since then, the heroin trade has ballooned from negligible to #1 in the world, with $1 trillion a year in sales. Now, plans are being made to exploit Afghanistan’s four trillion dollars worth of minerals, especially lithium, needed for high performance batteries. It did not even end after bin Laden was assassinated in Pakistan. What does that tell you about the real purpose of the war?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Purpose of Air Shows

The purpose of an air show is twofold: to impress and cow the populace with the power of the military machines and secondly to camouflage the true purpose of these expensive machines, namely to burn the skin off the backs of children in the Middle East.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Purpose of the Iraq War

If the true purpose of the Iraq war were WMD s, the occupation should have ended a few months after the invasion on 2003-03-22 once the inspectors were certain there were no WMDs. It didn’t. Obama announced the war was winding down on the same day all of Iraq’s oil resources were auctioned off to American and European oil companies. What does that tell you about the real purpose of the war?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Purpose of Nukes

If you trigger a global nuclear war, no matter what the circumstances, you will be worse off. So why bother stockpiling them? As a deterrent? Everybody else also knows you would be worse of if you trigger a global nuclear war. So you are not fooling anyone.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Purpose of Remembrance Day

I get angry with the Remembrance Day day poppies and the endless lugubrious TV commercials glorifying soldiers. What are doing is Pavlovian conditioning. They are trying to transfer the worship of WWI and WWII vets to the war criminals of today involved in the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The motivations of today’s soldiers are quite different from yesteryear. Today’s soldiers are mostly would be serial killers, bigots, sadists, rapists and child molesters who have calculated they can get away with their crimes and get paid for it if they just enlist.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Purpose of Secrecy

Government secrecy ostensibly is to keep enemies from learning things that would make their attacks more effective. However, in practice, secrecy is mostly to lie to the people to hide evil government/military behaviour. There are more whistleblowers than you would imagine. Many wait to see if some other person makes the sacrifice. If so, they don’t need to act. They only need to act if no one else has. Consider that soldiers are often willing to lose their lives for no purpose at all — e.g. in a war where their country was not even attacked. So it is no surprise that whistleblowers are willing to sacrifice their lives to stop a war or some other extremely wrong-headed policy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Purpose of Torture

The purpose of torture is not to gain information but rather to cow the population. It is thus a form of terrorism, one practised by the USA.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Putting Up With Americans

Imagine a gang of thugs invaded your home and occupied it for over a decade. They raped your daughters and sons. They shot your pets for amusement. They randomly detained your relatives and tortured them. They defiled the symbols of your religion. They deliberately ran over your children with trucks. They held sidewalk sales to sell off everything you owned of value. They doused you in radioactive, caustic and burning chemicals. Perhaps most galling was they claimed they did these things for your benefit and complained that you were not more grateful. When your grandson tried to resist, they took him away, never to be seen again, calling him a criminal and terrorist. That is what the Afghans and Iraqis have to put up with every day.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Questionable Recruits

You really have to wonder about the motives of someone who tells you they are willing to endure extreme danger and hardship for a chance to butcher children, in self defense of course, on the other side of the world.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Quiet Protest

If you lived in Nazi Germany, you could protest your country invading its neighbours by refusing to do business with any corporation that offered discounts to SS officers. Similarly, in the USA you can protest by refusing to do business with any corporation than offers special rates to people in the armed services or that produced commercials glorifying those war criminals who participate in your country’s illegal wars.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Racist Cartoons

Every once in a while, the Saturday morning cartoons will air a Popeye or Bugs Bunny cartoon from the WWII era. These are embarrassingly racist, referring to the Japanese as Japs or Nips, portrayed like little rats with huge teeth and squinting eyes. This might be forgiven since Japan attacked the USA unprovoked. However, Americans do the same thing today with the nations they attacked unprovoked. They call the Taliban and the Iraqi resistance terrorists, extremists and insurgents. They blanket the Internet with bigoted and uninformed cracks about Islam. Ignorant Americans pass on urban myths about Islam and almost no one has the balls to counter the disinformation.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Racist Revenge

Millions of ignorant Americans claim that in revenge for the deaths of 3500 Americans on 2001-09-11, they have the right to invade, occupy, torture, incarcerate, rape, plunder, burn, poison, bomb and kill hundreds of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi men, women and children. Setting aside how out-of-proportion that response is, recall that President Bush said that Osama bin Laden (a Saudi) and a gang of hijackers (Saudi) pulled it off. According to president Bush, there were no, nada, zero Afghans or Iraqis involved. Racism makes many Americans conflate all brown-skinned people and all Muslims together for group punishment. America’s unprovoked attacks are even more shameful than lynching a random black person for an unsolved crime. Both wars are as illegal as Hitler’s invasion of Poland. This makes anyone aiding or abetting those wars guilty of a capital crime. It is not just me saying this. All the secretaries-general of the UN, who ought to know have said so as has the lead Nuremberg prosecutor for the Einsatgruppen prosecution. In theory, every American in the military could hang. That will not happen but it does not change the fact they are all openly guilty of a hanging offence and should be treated with contempt.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Racist Underestimation

One of the reasons both the Afghans and the Iraqis have managed to fight the USA to a stalemate with almost no budget and a small fraction of the population is American racism. Americans underestimate their opponents over and over. A recent example is the way Afghans have hacked the video broadcasts of the predator drones with $26.00 USD software. Americans did not take even the most basic precautions because they were sure all the Afghans were technically illiterate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Radicalisation

The Canadian government, fearing domestic terrorism, has expressed alarm about radicalisation, Canadian citizens turning against Canada. The #1 cause of radicalisation is learning details about Canada’s (and America’s) illegal invasions in the middle east and the atrocities. Canada’s primary approach to dealing with this is trying to convince Canadians these actions never happened or to claim that they were justified. However, with the Internet, anyone who is curious can hear the point of view of any party. The secondary approach at control is to harass, jail or torture those who point out Canada’s bad behaviour. To me, the most effective approach would be to avoid illegal invasions and committing atrocities in the first place, in other words, behave as we publicly claim to.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Radicalisation

The USA and Britain are attempting to stop the radicalisation of their own Muslim citizens. If they were serious, they would stop killing Muslim children and stop stealing Muslim oil. Even if they did, past atrocities will be long remembered.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ramifications of Supporting the Troops

If you support the troops then you support what the troops do, namely kill people to steal their natural resources. Americans never think this through.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Random Killing

I can understand it when wives kill their husbands who have beat them and abused their children. I can understand it when people whose families have been tortured and killed by soldiers go on a suicide mission to take revenge on their tormentors. What makes no sense is when a terrorist or soldier kills random civilians who had nothing whatsoever to do with his grievance. The terrorist mindlessly lumps everyone of the same religion, nationality or race into the same category. There is no true revenge, just a revenge spiral fueled by harming innocents.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Random Violence

It was always obvious to me that random violence against random victims, such as Americans bombing houses in Afghanistan and Iraq was pointless and self-defeating. But I have wondered what the effect of a more directed violence would be, e.g. targeting only those who order deaths, who shape pro-war opinions, who profit from war or environmental degradation. The Taliban seem to be experimenting with this approach targeting corrupt and turncoat politicians. Americans tend to assume the Taliban are stupid foolish people, but that is obviously not true, since they have managed to hold the Americans and cohorts with their unlimited war budget at bay for a decade. War is a like a magic trick. The soldiers are a distraction to make those attacked mistake who is really attacking them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ranking Malice

If you made a list of the attacks on civilians in the USA, Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade and ordered them by severity, irrespective of who committed them: USA, Canada, Britain, Iraqis, Taliban, Al Qaeda etc. where would the Boston Marathon bombing fit in?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Rape

In a war, women and children are at risk of rape both from invading and defending soldiers. They need lethal force to protect themselves.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Rape and War

In every war, soldiers rape, gang rape and stab young girls to death when they have had their fill. It is one of the unwritten appeals of enlisting. How else can you commit a paedophilic rape/murder and get a medal for it?

The usual pattern is to capture a girl 10 to 13 years old (or failing that a teenage boy), draw lots on who goes first, gang rape, then torture the girl to death.

Why not just hire a prostitute? I speculate, by picking such young victims, they are assuring they are unlikely to carry an STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease). By killing them, the soldiers are assuring any young girls they encounter are virgins. By torturing her, they are just extending their pleasure. After all, why did they enlist if not to hurt people. Japanese soldiers who raped 20,000 girls at the fall of Nanking in 1937 explained they were simply bored. They expressed no guilt or regret. It is a feature of every war. Check Google images, with safe mode off, for

war images ~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) Nanking

Rape and War

It is amazing how many people refuse to acknowledge that rape is an integral part of war, including ones waged by the USA. Consider:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Rape Is Normal For Soldiers

David Russell Williams (1963-03-07 age:55) is a convicted murderer, rapist and former Colonel in the Canadian Forces. The armed forces try to pretend that his behaviour was atypical and have disowned him. Don’t be silly. Raping, torturing, murdering and bullying are the norm for the Canadian armed forces once they get to Afghanistan. Williams just jumped the gun a bit because he got promoted and stuck in a desk job commanding the Trenton base.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Rational Kid Reaction

TV news loves to do stories where a soldier returns unannounced from Iraq or Afghanistan to surprise his child. One of these days some child is going to react rationally to his father’s return after abandoning the child for years to go hunting kids on the other side of the globe and scream at being grabbed by a strange psychopath.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Rational Suicide Attacks

Suicide attacks are a rational strategy against American soldiers because these soldiers are so well protected, trained and equipped, that every one taken out of action will save hundreds of lives. There is nothing more immoral about a suicide attack than an attack where the attacker survives. We award bravery medals to those who sacrifice their lives in suicidally dangerous attacks, yet when our enemies do it, we pretend they are crazed and cowardly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Rationalisation for Afghanistan

Bush proclaimed the right to invade Afghanistan because he thought bin Laden was hiding there. He never presented his evidence to the public or a consenting legal opinion. It turned out bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan. The USA kept fighting the Taliban even after bin Laden was dead. If the point of the war was to assassinate bin Laden, why not stop when the mission was accomplished? Hint: maybe bin Laden was not what the war was really about.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Reading as Antidote to War

The more people read, the less keen they will be on war. This is because they get used to looking at the world through other people’s eyes. They come to value other people as complex beings, much like themselves. They are thus more accurate at understanding others’ motives. War requires adopting a childish cartoon-like simplification of the so-called enemy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Reap The Whirlwind

Hosea 8:7 For they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind: Bush illegally attacked and occupied both Afghanistan and Iraq and confiscated their oil and minerals. Americans naïvely presumed there would be no retaliation. Their sense of entitlement is absurd.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Recruiter Pimps

Recruiters are to the military as pimps are to prostitutes. They bully and lie to bring in new gullible players to a filthy immoral activity.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Recruiting Trap

Any idiot who trusts the US military when he signs up for one year with the promise of special training and no combat will usually get no such training, combat and can be locked into the military for an additional 26 years under the stop loss program.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Red Queen Arms Race

In an arms race, after a while both sides will likely have roughly the same advantage they had at the start. The weapons and defences will be more sophisticated. All that will have changed is the extra cost to both sides of maintaining the balance. Nobody wins but the arms manufacturers. An arms race usually ends in a war or bankruptcy of one or both parties.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Reduced But Not Ended

Obama ordered 80,000 troops removed from Iraq and 60,000 to stay. That is about 57% withdrawn. That is an encouraging move, but in no way signals the end of hostilities.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Refighting the Korean War

The Americans fought the Chinese to a stalemate in Korea. Later the Chinese/Viet Namese defeated them in Viet Nam. How would they do today? China has acquired massive manufacturing capability. The USA has shed its factories. The USA is $14 trillion. The Chinese own much of that debt. The American success in WWII came because Roosevelt was able to rapidly commandeer America’s manufacturing industries for the war effort. The USA can’t even prevail in wars against unfunded and unarmed resistance such as in Afghanistan and Iraq. Americans have a bloated opinion of their military might. They are in a position much like Britain in its sunset years, dreaming of empires long gone.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Refraining from Terrorism Benefits

Note that countries, such as Switzerland, that do not commit atrocities or acts of terrorism (i.e. civilians killing civilians, or armies killing civilians) are very rarely attacked themselves. Countries that routinely commit atrocities, such as the USA, Russia or Israel, are constantly under attack. If these countries seriously wanted to deter terrorist attacks against themselves, the most effective way to do it would be to forgo terrorist attacks against others. Terrorism invites terrorism in a revenge spiral. The fools imagine they can stop terrorism by committing ever more outrageous terrorist attacks. That sort of rogue behaviour just makes it worse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Refusal to Prosecute

Every western soldier who served in Afghanistan or Iraq committed a capital war crime, namely aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike war). Besides killing people who attack US soldiers, the United States goes after them with the criminal justice system, with all the civil rights checks and balances turned off. This is odd, like prosecuting someone who murdered an inmate on death row.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Refusing to Arrest Bush

George W. Bush visited Canada on 2011-10. Even though Harper was legally required to arrest him as a war criminal, Harper refused to do so.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Regime Change

Regime change by force works only when the new regime is clearly better than the old. That is not true in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai is the biggest heroin dealer on the planet. He is corrupt to the core. Why did the USA back such a loser crook? He was ex-Unocal and the Americans wanted a royalty free pipeline route for Unocal. He was pro-heroin and has $1 trillion a year in sales to spread around to his friends.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Regret is No Excuse

When a terrorist blows up a subway station, we do not in the least excuse him if he claims to regret the deaths of the children. He knew full well how many kids he would kill. In like manner, when an American military man drops bombs on houses, no matter how much he may regret killing the 50% of the occupants who are children, he is still a terrorist (killer of civilians attempting to influence them politically) and still a murderer of innocents and still a war criminal. He is guilty of a capital crime and should be treated as anyone else who brazenly committed a capital crime even if he escapes prosecution.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Relative Evil

Is there any significant difference in evil between killing 6 million people of the same religion, 6 million people of the same nationality or 6 million people of random religions and nationalities?

Is there any significant difference in evil between killing 6 million people by gas in a concentration camp, by dropping a nuke on them, by dropping conventional bombs on them or by shooting them?

Is there any significant difference in evil between killing 6 million combatants, civilian women, civilian men, children or seniors?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Relative Evil

The west has behaved abominably to the middle east. People joining the Taliban or ISIS to resist is to be expected. They would not even need middle eastern roots. What is odd in the way they also embrace the religion and the barbarism, but our barbarism is even worse objectively. Beheading is not nearly the torture of embalming someone in white phosphorus. We in the west seem to think suicide bombing of civilians is more wicked that non-suicide bombing of civilians. If anything, suicide bombing is more sincere.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Religious Assassins

What sort of things might an assassin consider?

An assassin has no qualms if either he thinks his target is worthless or, oddly, if it is very significant.

Consider a Muslim suicide bomber. His targets are random anonymous civilians, including children. He will almost certainly be killed, blown to pieces. Religion has convinced the assassin that it is overwhelmingly important these people be killed, that the creator of the universe all but commands it and will reward overwhelmingly.

Consider a Christian drone pilot. He is given co-ordinates of a house containing Muslims. He directs a drone attack on the house, killing all its occupants including children. His religion convinces him his targets are mere cockroaches. His own safety is assured. He takes no risk so requires no convincing the kill is necessary.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Relishing Mindless Conquest

I find it deeply disturbing that the vast majority of Americans have no shame at all that they attacked Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq… unprovoked, slaughtered civilians and plundered. Alexander the Great was mad, sadistic and unbelievably brutal. He is the most revered of all monarchs. Perhaps this relishing mindless conquest is just human nature.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Reluctance to Prosecute

The reason American, Canadian and British leaders are so reluctant to prosecute war crimes is they realise they too are guilty of them. The reason Germans are less reluctant is they want to hold others to the same standard they were held at the end of WWII, even before war crimes were officially illegal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Remembrance Day

My parents, who lived through WWII, told me that the whole point of Remembrance Day was to remind everyone just how horrible war is and that we must do whatever it takes to avoid repeating the folly.

However, unprincipled people like Prime Minister Harper, have twisted its purpose 180 degrees. He exploits it to glorify war and to celebrate hoary victories. His wants Canadians to permit him to divert billions of dollars to his backers for inappropriate or useless military hardware and illegal foreign wars. He hopes a general reverence for war will help him do that.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day was originally for the vets of the first and second world wars. It has since been improperly extended to the vets of the Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Why improperly?

All countries that belong to the UN signed a treaty. They agreed to avoid aggressive (first strike) war. They agreed that participating in such a war in any way (even peeling potatoes) was a capital war crime. They agreed to hand over suspected war criminals of any nationality for prosecution at the World Court in the Hague in the Netherlands. Every one of Hitler’s men hanged at the end of WWII was convicted of participating in an aggressive war. That was the only charge ever used. How do I know this? One of the prosecutors, Benjamin Ferencz (still alive), was a friend of a friend.

The United States reneged on the treaty. Like a drug warlord, the USA claims it does not recognise the authority of the world court. It says it will protect American war criminals from prosecution.

If you participate in an aggressive war, you are a war criminal. It does not matter what your nationality is. Americans, Canadians and Brits can all be war criminals. If does not matter if your country sanctions the aggressive war, you are still an international war criminal. It does not matter if you are never convicted. You are still a war criminal. Someone who robs banks is a bank robber whether or not he is caught, whether or not the Mafia protects him.

In debates with American soldiers who participated one or more of the aggressive wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, they claimed they were innocent because their government would protect them from prosecution. Some of them were aware Dr. Kissinger avoids going to Europe to avoid prosecution. In theory they could be arrested too. In practice they would probably be left alone, because they are not big enough fish. But that does not change the fact they are war criminals guilty of a capital (death penalty) crime. Just because a child molester priest is protected from prosecution by the church does not mean what he did was OK.

It is thus improper to honour war criminals, (aka vets of the Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars) convicted or not, on Remembrance day. Further, modern vets did not fight honorably. They used banned weapons. They used torture. They targeted children. They laughed at the Geneva conventions. They deserve extreme dishonour. Legally they deserve the death penalty. If you disagree, at least admit you are a scofflaw.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Remembrance Day = Glorify War Day

My least favourite day of the year is Remembrance Day. For a month prior, Canadians go teary eyed over soldiers who killed and tortured children in the illegal aggressive Afghan war. They are all heroes who served their country.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Remembrance Day Speech

When I was 15, Mr. MacKenzie, the high school principal, asked me to deliver a speech for Remembrance Day to the at the school assembly. The text was a revolting maudlin document. It had been read verbatim every year for decades. I did not want to do this, but back then, there was no way to refuse the principal. He told me, Whatever you do, don’t lose this speech. It is the only copy. I smiled inwardly. I delivered the speech as commanded, but somehow mislaid the paper, saving subsequent generations of students from being subjected to it. You too can protest in your own quiet way.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Remote Control Warfare

Modern warfare is executed largely by remote control. Most of the Al Qaeda leaders were killed with Predator drones. Snipers can kill from a safe distance of 3 km (1.86 miles). Soldiers are protected by kevlar and tootle about in armoured vehicles. And even when an American soldier is injured, modern field medicine does miracles to keep him alive, even when he is brain-damaged or missing body parts. The net result is a much greater percentage of soldiers are coming back alive. And they are coming back much more psychologically damaged, maimed, violent and dangerous than when they left.

In centuries past, hot-blooded teens ran off to war and quickly removed themselves from the gene pool before they could cause too much trouble for their societies. Those that came back were usually largely undamaged. Now soldiers are largely coming back as both a burden to care for physically and psychologically and a source of violence. War is losing its primary benefit.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Reneging on Treaties

The USA has reputation for reneging on treaties whenever it is to its advantage. They reneged on almost every treaty they made with the native Americans. They renege on the UN treaty every day. They renege on the NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) treaty with Canada.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Republican Candidates

I can see rivals like China and ISIS rubbing their hands in glee looking at the crop of superstitious and stupid Republican presidential candidates. All of them are in favour of the dumbing down of America.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Republican Terrorists

Even with only control of congress, the Republicans were able to destroy the nation’s credit rating, thus in the long term costing it additional billions in interest charges and they were able to prolong the recession by blocking all attempts to create jobs. Al Qaeda in its wildest dreams could not have done that much damage. If the Republicans win the presidency, they will be able to finish the job as Jeb Bush bragged they would in his 1995 essay in Imprimis Magazine.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Repugnant Drones

There is something unusually repugnant about drones, where obese teenagers, pizza in hand, in the windowless basement of the CIA building in Langley Virginia play a video game whose side effect is killing families on the other side of the planet. It conjures up the decadence of Roman emperors pleasuring themselves anally with slaves as they idly watched Christians torn apart by lions. One of the goals of warfare is to use overwhelming weaponry that lets your fighters be 100% safe, while your opponents have no defence. Drones are an extension of high altitude bombing keeping your killers safe from retaliation. What get sacrificed is precision. Nearly always more bystanders are killed than the ostensible targets. Bombing and the use of drones reflect a racist disdain for non-combatants. Many would consider their use cowardly. The disdain for civilians is not new. Harry Truman dropped the A bomb on the most civilian of targets in Japan in WWII, just to demonstrate his ruthlessness. My main concern with drones is too much power inevitably leads to corruption. Obama can have anyone he wants on earth killed by a drone, even John Boehner. That is too much power for a single human to command. At the very least, control of drones should be taken back from the secrecy of the CIA and put under military command.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Respect for Killers

A Mafia hitman is more worthy of respect than a US soldier. How so? Both kill anyone their employer requests, in return for money, however, a Mafia hitman usually kills adult gangsters where a US soldier kills men, women and children equally, none of who were any threat to people living in the USA. Mafia hitmen usually kill cleanly and quickly. US soldiers use all manner of banned weapons that effectively torture to death.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Results of the Afghan War

The United States has been butchering Afghans for 16 years, 6 months and 30 days. What has been the result?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Retaliation Spiral

When country attacks another, it obvious that the aggressor is the bad guy (unless the aggressor is your own country). But in a civil war, assignment of virtue is not so clear. Did the government unduly oppress the people, or are rebels fueled by loyalty to only a small group? Oddly, the newspapers and TV are never in doubt. For them, it is always 100% clear. It seems to me, in most wars, civil or international, both side engage in a spiral of retaliation until both are behaving abominably.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Revenge

If somebody bombs your country, kills a million of your people, mostly kids, uses banned weapons, tortures your people, occupies your country for over a decade, desecrates your holiest religious places and steals nearly all your natural resources, you don’t have to be Muslim, a religious extremist or a terrorist, to swear eternal revenge. If the invaders had bullied, raped and killed your family, you would happily sacrifice your life to kill half a dozen of them or anyone who had collaborated with them.

This is the normal human reaction. Americans like to pretend the Middle Eastern desire for revenge and the willingness to die in the attempt is something unfathomable because they are deeply in denial about their own war crimes that triggered this extreme desire for revenge.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Revenge of the Drones

Whatever the Americans do with drones will eventually be done to them. This includes autonomous drones that don’t need an on-ground pilot. Combine drone technology with computer printing of objects and you could have a 13-year old hacker mounting a successful attack on the Pentagon.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Revenge for War Crimes

The United States has dug itself into quite a hole. It has illegally attacked, unprovoked, three Muslim countries, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. It has arrogantly ignored the Geneva conventions terming them quaint. It has used banned weapons, biological warfare and torture. It has killed millions of civilians, mostly children. It stole all of Iraq’s oil and auctioned it off to European and American oil companies. It preparing to steal Afghanistan’s lithium treasure. This is monstrously bad behaviour. The entire Muslim world is quietly biding its time to take revenge when the financial and military power of the USA has weakened. How is the USA to avoid taking it on the chin to pay for these crimes? I can only think of one way — massive reparations.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Revenge Madness

Revenge is one of the craziest human activities. I heard an African guy interviewed on CBC Radio who sought out an Arab the exact shade of the man who murdered his family to torture to death. Of course, his victim had absolutely nothing to do with the original murder. I consider the African stark raving bonkers. Had someone decided to torture him because he was the exact same shade as Robert Mugabe, he would deeply understand his madness.

If you must go for personal revenge, go after the culprit. Failing that, go after those who commanded him to commit his crime. Failing that, go after someone in the same criminal gang or army committing similar crimes. It is just crazy to go after someone in the same religion, unless the clergy of the religion commanded the crime and your scapegoat cheerlead the crime. It is plain wrong to go after civilians, especially children. They could not possibly be implicated in the original crime.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Revenge on the Innocent

The most despicable thing about terrorists is that they take revenge on people who had nothing whatever to do with the grievance. The Americans are by far the biggest terrorists in the world, in that they kill the most civilians. They excuse themselves, on the grounds that they wear uniforms and drop bombs from the air when they kill non-combatants and that they claim they regret killing children as a side effect of warfare. They are still terrorists. The definition of terrorism is killing civilians in an attempt to influence they political views. American terrorism lowers the bar and helps other terrorists excuse themselves. It is much like chlorine by one combatant in. Don’t excused all types of poison gas by all combatants.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Revenge Spiral

Revenge allows a war to continue forever. Once a war gets started, the aggressor forgets history and justifies further atrocity simply because the defender resisted him. American soldiers take this a step further. When they invade, they call it self-defence if the country they are invading offers any resistance.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Rise of ISIS

When you see photos of ISIS beheading, raping, killing children, conducting mass executions… your first reaction is we must eliminate these bastards with the same ruthless efficiency we would stamp out an infestation of Japanese giant hornets (Vespa mandarinia).

Then you might ask yourself What possesses these people to do such evil things? When I chewed on that question for a while, I came to the conclusion we Canadians brought ISIS on ourselves by attacking Afghanistan. It did not attack us, we attacked it. This is called an aggressive war. It is illegal in international law and by UN treaty. Anyone who participates in such a war, even just to peel potatoes, is a war criminal who has committed a capital (hanging) offence. Further, we used banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). We routinely tortured all POWs.

The Americans and the British did the same, and also illegally attacked Iraq under false pretences.

Consider how ferociously the Afghans fought and expelled the Russians, a country even more brutal and heartless than the USA. It is ridiculous, after enduring that pounding from the Russians, to imagine the Afghans would cave in to western pressure.

We look at war through a cloudy lens, that makes our enemies look ten times more monstrous than we are. But consider, how would you sooner die, burned alive by white phosphorus or decapitation? Consider that decapitation is very similar to the guillotine, used as a humane execution technique in France up until 1981. When we drop bombs on houses, fully knowing they are mostly filled with children, are we guiltless just because we claim collateral damage or self-defence from child suicide bombers? Surprise! We are even more sadistic than ISIS! They see what they do as gentle revenge for the institutional sadism we did to them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Ritual Clothing

There is a primitive tribe in the Americas that has an odd custom. The elders hand out special ritual garments to selected lay members of the tribe, usually from the lower castes. Wearing this clothing bestows almost complete ritual immunity to all taboos. The wearers may steal, rape, murder… with impunity. In turn the wearer of one of these garments agrees to unquestioningly do anything one of the elders wants, most commonly dispatching rivals or killing for entertainment, or sometimes S&M-tinged sexual favours. This primitive tribe live to this day in the USA and they call the ritual clothing a military uniform.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Roots of the Iraq War

In 1998 Dick Cheney and his buddies at PNAC (Project for the New American Century) wrote Bill Clinton asking him to invade Iraq because it had a significant amount of the earth’s supply of oil. So it seems plausible that when Cheney became VP (Vice President), he would want to invade Iraq for the same reason.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Running Backwards

Obama negotiated a SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) treaty to reduce the number of nukes from 2500 to 1000. The senate immediately increased the nuke budget by 10% per year.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Rôle of Sadism

Bush and Cheney ordered torture, not to get information, but because they received pleasure from watching the videos. Nearly everyone has forgotten that Bush stonewalled Judge Hellerstein when he subpoenaed Bush’s child rape and torture videos. Nearly everyone has forgotten Bush’s history of personal sadism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Saddam Excuse

Now that the Iraq war is winding down, Americans are excusing their slaughter by pointing out At least Saddam is gone. Wait one cotton pickin’ minute. Saddam offered to surrender and abdicate even before the war started. George W. Bush turned him down and invaded anyway because he wanted the oil. Saddam’s regime collapsed immediately, but the occupation continued unabated. Saddam was captured on 2003-12-14. Yet the occupation lasted another 7 years and 11 months. On the very day Obama announced troop withdrawals from Iraq he also announced a giant sell off of Iraq’s oil reserves to American and European oil corporations. Mission Accomplished. This suggests the war had absolutely nothing to do with Saddam, absolutely nothing to do with self-defence, bugger all to do with a desire for democracy in Iraq and everything to do with stealing Iraq’s oil for a nation desperate for continued supplies so insanely addicted that it ignores the climate change consequences. Americans are eager to put this all behind them, but they behaved so badly their deeds will live in infamy so long as humans walk the earth. I hope with all my heart these war criminals face prosecution and execution or life imprisonment, even if it takes another 60 years for justice

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sadist Halloween

In a war, sadists lose their fear and reveal their sick fantasies. They are emboldened to bullying others into realising them. The kind of man who openly creates a bomb disguised as a toy is the same sort of puke who secretly poisons kids’ candy on Halloween.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sadistic Entertainment

The ancient Romans watched gladiators fight to the death and the slaughter of wild animals from all over the known world. They considered it first class entertainment. Modern day Americans watch fights, rapes, torture, murder, beheadings, animal killing… on TV, news, movies, YouTube and video games. They too consider it entertainment. Even when simulated with special effects, the result is the same, increased callousness toward the suffering of others and an addictive demand to view and participate in ever more sadistic violence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sadistic Soldiers

Americans assure me that American soldiers are perfect gentlemen and would never dream of abusing their power. Yet everyone knows how young Americans behave in fraternities when given even a tiny bit of power over the new pledges. Sadism boils up in even the most sanguine young man.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sadists Should become Politicians

If you were a serial killer/sadist who desperately desired to slaughter and torture millions of people, what would be your best strategy? Either go into politics or go into the military. I think we underestimate how much of the cruelty and extent of war is caused by such people attaining power. Recall that Bush stonewalled Judge Hellerstein’s subpoena for his child torture/rape videos prepared for him in Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Safe Wars

When the Vietnam war ended, the USA switched over to a mercenary army. There was no more conscription. To get voluntary recruits, they had to make war much safer than ever before. Planes would fly at extreme altitudes where they were safe from being shot down, and where they could not pick out targets properly. Soldiers in the country just invaded were recruited for the boots on the ground work. Of course, their loyalty was suspect. Obama has become enamoured of drones. Here the pilot is thousands of miles away ensconced safely in an American basement, completely safe. The military is working on all kinds of robots to get American soldiers off the battlefield.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is a medieval country. It beheads 150 people a year. The leader rules as an absolute monarch by divine right of kings. It has an atrocious civil rights record. Canada has no business selling or buying anything from it, much less weapons.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Saving the World

If there were a politician dedicated to starting a nuclear war, would it not be your moral duty to stop him, even if it meant killing him? Many people think Germans were morally obligated to assassinate Hitler, and he did not even start a nuclear war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Schadenfreude

Americans turn everything into a contest, even inherently relaxing things like fishing, drinking, dancing, camping and cooking. The appeal is that for every winner there are dozens of losers. The audience actively enjoys focusing on the misery of each of the losers. They make it into an even bigger ritual than the winner.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Schindler’s Futility

If you save a hundred people, but as a result cause a different hundred people to die, you have not really accomplished anything. Those you rescued will consider you a hero, but you have behaved no more morally than an ancient deity who decided randomly who lives and who dies. Those who admire Schindler ignore this.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

School Bullies

When I was in elementary school and junior high, I was the kid most bullies picked on. I was tripped, punched, held down, beaten up, set on fire, spat on, even sustained an attack on a pet turtle (the ultimate insult). They always attacked in gangs surrounding me. I was not the only victim. There was a tall kid with a round head called Slobbo. The epithet became so prevalent I was surprised when the teacher addressed him by his actual name, Richard. The class bully Dennis, every time he passed, gave a sharp punch to Tony’s arm, a skinny little kid who would wince in pain from the repeated bruising. I did not stand up for Slobbo/Richard or Tony. I had enough grief to deal with already. Nobody else did either, presumably for similar reasons. Bullies like this graduate to more sophisticated mayhem. They become soldiers. I am now taking the time to call them out for the pieces of shit they are.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Second Tier Nuclear Nations

India tested an Agni V (god of fire) 5000 km radius nuclear ICBM on 2012-04-18, capable of reaching China. Israel can easily nuke its neighbours including Iran. The United States can effortlessly land a nuke on any spot on the globe. These countries have all been sabre rattling. They each could, on their own, start a nuclear war. Perhaps we should pay more attention to them than North Korea and Iran, which still cannot. Even if our friends start the nuclear war, it is no more endurable for us. There was once a time when the submarine, the machine gun, poison gas and white phosphorus were considered too awful to even contemplate for use in war. It is thus only a matter of time until these nuclear nations become completely comfortable with the idea of using nukes for first strike (or what they euphemistically call pre-emptive strikes).

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Secret from Whom?

The CIA, since the Bush years, has been secretly using Predator drones to assassinate people in Pakistan. This is surely no secret for those being targeted or for the citizens of Pakistan. From whom is this information supposedly being withheld? Obviously the citizen of the USA. How can that be justified? Claiming national security is obviously BS. The intent is to manipulate public opinion about the Afghan and the Iraq war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Secret War

When a country wages war secretly, whom are they hiding the war from? It is not the country attacked. They know all about it from the bombs falling from the sky. It is not the hawks in the attacking country. They are always up for a war anytime against anyone, purpose not required. It is the doves in the attacking country who would resist yet another pointless war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Secular or Religious Revenge?

Keep in mind the USA attacked Afghanistan to steal lithium and to push through a pipeline. It attacked Iraq to steal oil. Obama declared the war over on the same day as a massive auction to sell off Iraq’s oil to American and European oil companies. The USA killed kids with abandon and routinely tortured all prisoners.

Had these things not happened, I doubt Islamic extremists would have been nearly as successful selling young men on sacrificing their lives in revenge. On the other paw, without the lure of 72 virgins, the sales would also have been very tough.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Selective Attention

Americans are quite concerned about civil rights abuses in Afghanistan and Iran, but tend to ignore them in Myanmar and China. Why the difference? The US is currently occupying Afghanistan to gain control of its massive lithium deposits. They are planning a war with Iran to gain control of its oil and uranium.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Selective Blindness

It is amusing how Americans are all fully aware of how illegal Japan’s strike on Pearl Harbour was ditto Hitler’s invasion of Poland, but they pretend not to notice their first strike attacks such as Afghanistan and Iraq are also illegal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Self-deluding Americans

I can’t get over how self-deluding Americans are, including president Obama. They put 100% of the blame for self-radicalising terrorists on faulty mental health. There is nothing in the least bit odd about striking back when an enemy kills millions of your countrymen for no reason. The root problem is that America illegally invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq. Americans are extremely fortunate there has been almost no retaliation. In contrast, look what happened to Germany and Japan when they pulled the same filthy stunt.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Self-Extinguishing Terrorism

Terrorism is ultimately self-extinguishing. When terrorists (including state terrorists) harm innocent civilians, they unite everyone against them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Self-Sustaining War

Wars are like fires. To ignite them, corporations and governments have to go to a lot of work, huffing and puffing glorious rhetoric and propaganda. However, once the war is going, it becomes self sustaining. The casualties create motivation for still more war to exact revenge for the casualties (which, of course, creates still more casualties).

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Selfish Americans

Democrats want other countries to take America’s prisoners of war currently held at Gitmo off their hands because keeping them in the USA would be too expensive and because of the danger of escapes. Why would it be any less expensive or dangerous for other countries to keep them?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Selling War To Kids

So long as the USA remains embroiled in two illegal wars, the Captain America comic book character should be considered a villain. It is pretty sick selling illegal wars to 5 year olds.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Send in the Drones

President Obama is justified in using drones to kill ISIS leaders, but not Taliban ones. ISIS attacked the USA, but the Taliban never did. The USA does not like the Taliban because they are too religiously fundamentalist and because they oppose a US pipeline through their country, but that is no justification for murder.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sense of Entitlement in Warriors

People who wage war believe they are special, privileged. They think others ought to suffer so that they may benefit. They don’t believe that all men are created equal. Capitalists think similarly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sequester Child Killers

A man who has killed, raped or tortured children, or who has aided and abetted such crimes, no matter what the excuse, including being ordered to in the military, should never again be allowed near children, including his own.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serial Killer Baby Sitters

I find it bizarre that young mothers ecstatically welcome their serial child-killer soldier husbands home to babysit their kids.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serial Killer Lovers

There are a class of women who fall in love with serial killers. They do this to compensate for a lack of personal power. Those that enjoy notoriety and scandal pick incarcerated serial killers. Those that wish to project respectability select soldiers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serial Killer Marco Martinez

people/martinez War criminal Marine Sergeant Marco Martinez was a young gangster, but he felt that killing people in drive by shootings was not fulfilling. So he enlisted in the US Navy to hunt and exterminate people on the other side of the world. The Navy had designated official bad guys that it was ok to kill. He enthusiastically killed a large number of people who were no threat to the USA. Granted, they were worthy, dangerous and exciting prey. The Navy awarded him the Navy Cross for his sadism and NPR glorified his murders in a radio broadcast. Martinez is mildly retarded. Yet he has committed a capital crime. He belongs in jail, not fêted as a national hero.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) source

Serial Killer Memorabilia

How do you win a medal? You insanely risk your life to kill large numbers of people. For bonus points, this act should also protect some people out hunting humans. People collect them like other serial killer memorabilia.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serial Killer Souvenirs

Serial killers (including soldiers) usually take souvenirs: jewelry, underwear, clothing, ears, penises, eyes, fingers, toes… sometimes using them as masturbation aids. Animal killers take souvenirs too. They take the entire carcass to professionals for long term preservation so they ran relive the kill over and over.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serial Killers

The people most likely to commit multiple murders, murder, torture and rape children are those who sign up for the military. In return for killing those the military orders killed, the military protects the soldiers from prosecution for their crimes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serial Killers Welcomed as Baby Sitters

If you knew a guy were a serial murderer of men, women and children and that he had dreamed of this occupation since childhood, would you leave him alone with your kids? Many women even marry such men to help perpetuate their killer genes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serves ’m Bloody Well Right

I have zero sympathy for vets suffering from alcoholism, PTSD or suicidal depression. They knew these consequences were part of the price of a licence to kill. Nobody forced them to go hunting children on the other side of the globe who were not the remotest threat.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serving = Killing

Male politicians bragging about serving (killing innocent people) in illegal wars such as Viet Nam, Afghanistan or Iraq is as sick as a female politician bragging about how many abortions she has had.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serving War Criminals

What kind of person dedicates their life to serving war criminals? Look at a doctor in a VA (Volt-Amps) hospital.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Serving Your Country

In what universe does participating in an illegal war to kill innocent men women and children one the other side of the world who pose no threat count as serving your country? It counts as self-serving sadism. It counts as serving Xe, (née Blackdown), Carlyle, Halliburton, BAE, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, General Electric… but it does not serve the country. If that is serving your country, then the Nazis who manned the gas ovens at Auschwitz also served their country. The lie has been repeated so often, most Americans believe it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sexual Assault And The Military

Sexual assault and the military go together like ham and eggs. Why? The military is extremely hierarchical. People in it do what they are told, either by superior officers or by peers. Only people who hate autonomy and personal responsibility can tolerate it.

The other problem is the military hires people to bully. The catch is, not only do they like to harm the official enemy, or people who look like them, they like to bully each other.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shame Of America

What do you call a nation that picks on smaller nations, uses its military might to extort valuable natural resources from other nations, consumes far more than its fair share of the world’s resources, pollutes mightily and produces little? I remember, America.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shame For Canada’s Soldiers

Most people would be more upset if their son dismembered a child than if some stranger across down did it. For the same reason, I get more upset when Canadian, American and British soldiers dismember children than when people from countries I have never visited do it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shameless Americans

I am amazed that Americans don’t daily renounce their citizenship or commit suicide in shame at being American. American soldiers committed a crime — murdering unarmed men, children and those to ran to their aid, shooting at them on a Baghdad street from a helicopter, for sport. Army Pfc. Bradley/Chelsea Manning was the whistle-blower. Instead of praise, he has been locked in solitary confinement without trial ever since. Those who had the temerity to call his release were harassed by the government. All manner of American politicians called for his assassination for refusing to cover up for US military war crimes. These braindamaged twits equated whistleblowing with treason and espionage. This is the sort of thing you would expect from Nazi Germany, not the USA. What a stinking nation of cowards Americans are, standing idly by letting the criminals have their way!

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sheeple Bill Moyers

The herd instinct is so powerful, that even Bill Moyers bought into the lie that Afghanistan attacked the USA first, thus justifying the invasion. That would be like justifying invading and plundering Mexico’s or Columbia’s natural resources because of the actions of drug smugglers. That Nazis were able to bamboozle their entire population to follow a path of evil is more understandable.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sheeplike Ignorance

Republican Christians ignore evidence of holes in the official 2001-09-11 story. They ignore holes in the bible story. They vote to preserve the privilege of the elites. Why? They have been trained since birth to defer to authority even when authority is apparently incorrect.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shooting To Help

It is most strange that ostensibly sane people claim that the best thing to do help a trouble spot on the globe is to send in the military to shoot people at random and drop bombs on children. That makes so little sense, surely they must have some ulterior motive.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shooting In the Foot

As westerners go, I am relatively sympathetic to Muslim and Arab points of view. However, when ISIS burns their Jordanian prisoner alive in a cage, I thought, it would be a good thing if everyone in ISIS were exterminated. I think this way fully aware that the USA routinely burns children alive by dumping white phosphorus on them. When ISIS theatrically beheads prisoners, I think, everyone in ISIS deserves a similar death. I do this fully aware that the USA beheads and dismembers children with bombs by the score. When Boko haram kidnaps and rapes children, I want them all shredded to pulp. I do this fully aware that Canadian and US soldiers also rape children. All ISIS is doing with its theatrical executions is convincing everyone in the west to fund their extinction.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shrill Insults

When a marten raids a squirrel nest, the squirrels can do nothing but shriek insults. Americans treat the shrill insults of their victims as serious threats that justify an initial attack. They are such Nazis, but have such a high opinion of themselves they can’t see how badly they are behaving.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Shrinking the Military

In the middle ages, the soldiers conscripted to fight the invading Vikings, turned to personal thuggery, shaking down peasants and working as muscle for castle owners to make the surrounding peasants pay tribute. The United States will have a similar problem when they finally get around to cutting the size of the military.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sick Rationalisation

Imagine a motorcycle gang beat you up every day of your life and stole whatever money you had. Then one day, after about a decade, they got bored and stopped. Would you?

  1. Run over to the motorcycle clubhouse and attack somebody at random to revive the fight?
  2. Thank your lucky stars and hope they forget about you permanently.

Oddly, most Americans presume (1). They justify attacking and continuing attacking both Afghanistan and Iraq on the grounds as soon as they stop attacking, the victims will attack the American homeland. This is such a sick rationalisation for bullying.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Silence on Morality and Legality

American media will discuss whether the Afghan and Iraq wars can be won and whether they are worth the cost but never if they are morally justified or legal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sins of the Fathers

To what extent is the current generation responsible for the crimes of their ancestors? Consider for example how responsible are modern day Germans for the holocaust, or modern Israelis for the invasion of Palestine, or modern day Americans for the genocide of the indigenous people of North America by the European invaders and settlers?

The descendants of the criminals are not responsible for the torture, rape and killing. They had nothing whatsoever to do with it. However, a formal apology means a great deal to the descendants of the victims and costs the descendants of the criminals nothing.

However, if proceeds of the crime greatly enriched the descendants of criminals and impoverished or harmed the current day descendants of the victims, then at least token reparations are required.

In Canada, there are formal apologies every month for misbehaviour of ancestors and land claims settlements. South Africa used the apology approach to defuse the hatreds built up over apartheid. Germans put plaques up all over to apologise to Jews and some valuables have been returned, but Jews have not dared return. Israel flatly refuses to even admit wrong doing, much less pay reparations. Perhaps it will take another century.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sneaky Revenge

Bullies who attack other kids unprovoked, or steal their lunch money, should not be surprised if their victims resort to sneaky revenge. The same is true of nations.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Snowbirds

The Snowbirds are a Canadian Military aerobatics team. Their job to glamourise the military and seduce young people into enlisting for the illegal Afghan war. I find that pimping morally reprehensible. Further, they do their dangerous aerobatics swooping over cities, making an enormous noise terrifying the residents. An elderly lady ran from her house here in Victoria. She was convinced she was being strafed as she had been in London in WWII. I had to calm her down. They have no business annoying, terrifying and endangering private citizens. I hope the lot of them are killed in some spectacular collision into a remote mountainside.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sold Soldiers

A sold-ier is someone who temporarily sells themselves into slavery. They sell their conscience and even their soul. They are sold propaganda to make it easier for them to kill those who were no threat to themselves or their families. I have noticed soldiers who write me often spell their profession solid-er, an unconscious denial of the shame of their chosen profession.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Baby Sitters

I find it so odd that American mothers would entrust their children to soldiers, knowing full well they have butchered other people’s children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Choice

Soldiers and criminals of all types often excuse their actions with the words, What choice did I have? To anyone else, the bloody path they chose is unthinkable. To anyone else, they made the choice for selfishness, greed and cruelty time after time until it lead them into a situation even they could not stomach.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Clerks

According to a guy who disarms bombs for the US military, only one in twenty soldiers actually engages in combat. Most cook food, do paperwork, maintain equipment… Compared with WWI and WWII that is an amazingly high overhead. What then is motivating soldiers to enlist? Presumably they expect something more exciting and bloodthirsty. They know perfectly well playing support does not protect their country in the remotest way. They do have the right to rape and bully without consequences. Perhaps it is just a job of last resort for losers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Excuses

American and Canadian soldiers naïvely trust the government to inform them when they are being ordered to commit international war crimes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Motive

A young soldier phoned who had never been deployed. He was so utterly clueless:

He may seem too stupid to believe, but consider the astoundingly doltish results of the Jaywalking, quiz, Jay Leno interviews with Americans in the street. This guy is probably a creationist. If he will believe that, he will believe any crap.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Motives

When Canadian soldiers return from Afghanistan they often either attempt suicide or complete it. Everyone knows that combat often leads to PTSD, brain damage and suicide. Suicide is more common than death in combat. So the most important question is, why did these people enlist to go to Afghanistan in the first place?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Saints

Every time an American soldier is killed, his friends and family extol him as a saint. They assure us he was kind, helpful — a total boy scout. They refuse to acknowledge that he chose as his profession killing civilians in illegal wars on the other side of the world, who were no threat to him, him country or his family. It is not as though he was a WWII soldier, sacrificing his life to defend his country. Today’s soldiers are only one step above Blackwater mercenaries in moral responsibility.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Saints

Every time a Canadian soldier is killed, his friends and family extol him as a saint. They assure us he was kind, helpful — a total boy scout. They refuse to acknowledge that he chose as his profession killing civilians in illegal wars on the other side of the world, who were no threat to him, him country or his family. It is not as though he was a WWII soldier, sacrificing his life to defend his country. Today’s soldiers are only one step above Blackwater mercenaries in moral responsibility.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Serial Killers

Clifford Olson is BC’s most notorious serial killer. Over a year, he raped and murdered 11 children. However, he is an amateur compared with US soldiers/serial killers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of them kill 100 children in a single afternoon.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Success

In a war, a soldier can be said to have succeeded if he manages to kill at least two soldiers before being killed himself. (Actually, maiming them sufficiently so they can no longer participate in the war also counts.) In a non-violent confrontation, a participant can be said to have succeeded if he, or his team, manages to persuade even one person to give up his erroneous views.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Suicide

Today, way more US soldiers die from suicide than from combat. This was certainly not true in WWII. People kill themselves because they are deeply ashamed. They believe they don’t deserve to live. They believe they are so deeply flawed they don’t deserve love. These soldiers know better than anyone the atrocities they committed in Afghanistan and Iraq. This suicidal guilt is the natural consequence of committing atrocities. Nobody pushed the soldiers into it. They eagerly sought out the opportunities for such sadistic mayhem. All Americans share in their guilt because they funded those two illegal wars against countries who were no threat to the USA, ignoring the Geneva conventions, targeting civilians and using routine torture and banned weapons. Afghanistan and Iraq’s only crimes were having oil and minerals under their soil.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier Suicides

The main reasons anyone commits suicide are:

Soldiers who attacked Afghanistan by now realise they are war criminals who have committed a capital crime simply because they participated in an aggressive (first strike) war. Afghanistan did nothing to us. We attacked, killed and tortured millions of them.

My personal view is, if soldiers are getting PTSD and killing themselves, they bloody well deserved it. We should not be bending over backward to help them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldier vs Mafioso

What’s the difference between a soldier and a member of the Mafia?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldierly Denial

In World War II, German, Japanese and Italian soldiers were fully enthusiastic about killing even though they knew their countries had started the wars motivated by imperialistic expansion, in other words to steal the resources of other countries. It is thus no surprise that modern American soldiers kill, rape and torture with the same lack of guilt in their theft of Iraq’s oil (Auctioned off to American and European oil interests on same day Obama announced the troop withdrawal).

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldiers are Motivated by Sadism

Americans feel great sympathy for the soldier who butchered 9 children and 7 civilians. Americans imagine the soldiers are doing some extremely onerous but necessary job that often drives them insane. This is nonsense. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq attacked the USA. The wars are purely optional. Their purpose is control of crucial natural resources. The soldiers enlisted not to defend the USA but for adventure and the sadistic pleasure of killing Muslims like fish in a barrel, using high tech weapons, all with little personal danger. There is nothing remotely honourable about what the soldiers are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. Further, it is illegal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldiers are Not Heroes

The fashion is to glorify soldiers as if they were heroic firefighters. But they are more like street gang members. They kill, maim and torture without any inkling why such action might be necessary or pointless. Some soldiers in WWII fought both for and against Hitler. Soldiers fight because they like hurting other people. It is a relatively rare when the fighting actually helps to defend their countries. The outrageous aggression and brutality of the American soldiers is counterproductive. It is helping to fuel a word-wide hatred of America and a desire so see her humbled, hardly a wise self-defence move.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldiers at Home

If you train a soldier to shoot a five year old without batting an eye, on the grounds the child might be concealing a grenade, you have to expect him to be somewhat callous when he returns to family life. He will think nothing of dashing his infant son against a wall or threatening his wife with a handgun if she fails to do the dishes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldiers Deserve Contempt

CBCRadio likes to do pieces about Canadian soldiers who joined the illegal invasion of Afghanistan, killed civilians and children, then developed overwhelming guilt and other mental problems known as PTSD. The CBC feels pity for the soldiers and calls for increased compensation for these brave men who sacrificed their lives in the defence of Canada. I disagree. Afghanistan never attacked or threatened Canada. These men were not motivated by a desire to defend Canada but by blood lust, adventure and the joy of hurting others. PTSD is a mild consequence for capital war crimes. These soldiers do not deserve our pity. Rather they deserve our contempt.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldiers Never Stop to Think

I wonder if a soldier ever considers, even for a second, that, over his career, he created far more pain for others than he feels when his family is killed in an accident or war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Soldiers Not Even As Worthy As Suicide Bombers

I will never understand why American soldiers who close their eyes and drop bombs on random Iraqi homes filled mostly with children feel morally superior to suicide bombers who look their victims in the eye and sacrifice their own lives in order to commit their random murders.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Source of Weapons

There are civil wars that drag on for years all over the planet. Where do they get their weapons and munitions? From the USA and Canada. Canada pretends to be a peace-loving country, but more war there is, the richer it gets. Like the USA, it has a vested interest in promoting these wars. If they got serious about peace, they could stop selling weapons, and put an embargo on any country that took up the slack.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Speaking Ill of the Dead

It is considered back luck to speak ill of the dead, but I will take the risk to spit on soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq who went half way round the world to hunt (and/or rape) children for sport. I only wish they had been slowly tortured to death. I don’t hold soldiers who went to hunt/rape adults in much higher regard.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Spit on Vets

Since German vets of WWII, American vets of the Viet Nam War, the Afghan war and the Iraq war all fought in illegal first strike wars, violating the Geneva conventions, I don’t see why any of them deserve respect, honour or any form of support. They are all war criminals. That they were just following orders is no excuse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Starting A War

The end of a war is always much more joyful than the start. There is also regret and shame. Why don’t people remember this when there is still time to avoid a war?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Starting A War for Ratings

If an American president gets in political trouble, nothing helps his popularity like starting yet another war. The American public fall for it every time. You’d think by now they would realise wars are extremely expensive, mean higher taxes, bigger deficits, more debt, less government services and dead relatives. But the lure of smashing in the teeth of some tiny foreign country really turns the American crank. Americans are positively Roman in their attitude to war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

State Sadism

Consider the problem of sadism. Most ethical systems would say it is inappropriate for a sadist to torture someone to increase his pleasure, unless the person tortured is a consenting masochist. The US military has a quite a different moral view. They recruit young sadists and say So long as you have the power to inflict your will and restrict yourself to designated enemy men, women and children, have at it. These enemies are not enemies in the usual sense of people who attack you. They would be better described as official victims.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Steady Evolution of Weapons

Every generation invents weapons the previous considers too horrible. Those who create the weapons lie to themselves that the horror will end war. Right now we are creating armies of robots of all sizes to overwhelm any enemy/victim while we sit comfortably a continent a way and watch the slaughter on viewscreens. It is only a matter of time until this escalation ends, not war, but the human species, after an unusually short reign on earth.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Stealth

The power of military propaganda was able to turn the word stealth from meaning sneaky thievery into modern, fast and high tech.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Stench of Killers

There is a foul stench that emits from the people who disdainfully dismiss those who want peace or want to protect the environment. They somehow imagine themselves superior for encouraging war and trashing the planet. They do not even deserve a place on this planet. They are garbage.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Stigma

Americans are horrified hearing a story about someone who talked to an actual Islamic terrorist. Yet they think nothing of a story about someone who talked to an American soldier who dropped bombs on tens of thousands of children, killing far more people than the terrorist had.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Strange Reluctance

Western countries like the USA are perfectly happy to kill millions of soldiers and millions of civilians including children, when none of these people had the remotest influence on foreign policy. In contrast they are happy to tolerate an Assad, Gadafi, Mugabe, Kim Jong-Il, Idi Amin or Pol Pot for decades. The only exception was Saddam Hussein, but killing him was merely a side effect of stealing Iraq’s oil.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Strangling ISIS

If you kill civilians in Syria, that gets the friends and relatives furious. That encourages them to sign up for ISIS. That is not a good strategy for strangling ISIS.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Success of 2001-09-11

2001-09-11 was the most successful terrorist attack of all time. It was not just the large number of casualties, it was the novelty, the graphic images that were replayed over and over thousands of times and the Bugs Bunny-like way the tiny band of terrorists armed only with box cutters allegedly outwitted the entire US military. It was also complicated, inviting endless analysis and speculation. Blowing up a market full of civilians, these days, barely makes the wire services. If you were a terrorist, what would you do for an encore? My own guess is to piggyback on some other disaster waiting to happen. Examples:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suicide

21 US military vets commit suicide every day. Why? It finally dawns on them that what they did in combat was a war crime.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suicide Attacks

We are lucky that terrorists prefer suicide attacks. If they did not, terrorists would become more successful with each attack and they would teach young terrorists from their experience.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suicide Bombers

If you are planning to be a suicide bomber, I think you are a nitwit. Why?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suicide Killers

We have an inconsistent attitude toward suicide attacks:

It seems, in general, if our side does it, it is heroic. If the other side does it, it is wicked. The more civilians are killed as a side effect, the more the more heinous we consider the crime. I see it as a sincere form of killing. The suicide killer is saying, I am not killing you casually for no reason, out of boredom because I was paid to… I believe that it is so necessary to kill you that I am willing to give my life to put you out of commission.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suicide Missions

Suicide missions are not the first choice to wage war. They are an act of desperation when other more effective means of combat are impossible. If the Palestinians had tanks and an airforce, you think they would waste time with suicide missions one shopping markets?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suicide Voodoo

Americans have a strange belief that it is much more wicked to kill 40 people in a suicide bomb attack than to drop a bomb on them from a plane (at least if the pilot is American). They consider the first extremely wicked and the second perfectly acceptable. To the people blown up, it makes absolutely no difference.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suicide-Prone Vets

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is firing the counselors who look after returning Canadian vets from Afghanistan. One of the counselors went on the CBC and said that the counselors had to work full time to keep the vets from committing suicide. She was worried many of them would kill themselves if the counseling stopped. Why are these vets so suicide prone? Well, why does anyone commit suicide?

But, you ask, soldiers did horrible things in WWII, such as dropping a nuke on Hiroshima and fire bombing Tokyo. Why did they too not have such a high suicide rate?

The quickest and least shameful way to commit suicide is to deliberately die in battle. This means the suicide rate is under-reported.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for the vets. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. They knew perfectly well that the war was first-strike and that first strike wars are illegal, making them guilty of a capital war crime. They had no motive to go to Afghanistan except bullying, rape, killing and torture. In short, that had no motive but sadism. Now they are feeling so guilty about what they did, they are killing themselves off. I say, let them. What they did to others was far more cruel than what they are doing to themselves to atone. I’m with Harper. People who commit capital crimes don’t deserve free counseling.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suicide: the Leading Cause of Death

More soldiers died from suicide than died in combat during the Viet Nam War. You could look at it they died of shame or despair. In WWI and WWII soldiers did some shameful things, like the firebombing of Dresden, or the nuking of Nagasaki, but they believed the story of why those atrocities were necessary. In Viet Nam, they were not so naïve. The same applies even more so to the illegal Afghan and Iraq wars where there was no threat to the Canadian/American homeland.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suiciding Soldiers

A soldier who serves in Iraq is considerably more likely to commit suicide than be killed in action. This was in no way true of WWII vets. This means that the people who really know what happened in Iraq know it was intensely shameful.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suitable Caretakers For Children

Would you let a woman who was sexually attracted to men who killed children near your kids? If not, why then do you tolerate soldiers’ wives as caretakers and school teachers for your children?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Suitable Punishment for Cheney/Bush

There some crimes so egregious that execution or life in prison would be a gentle tap on the wrist. It is hard to imagine a punishment serious enough for what Cheney and Bush did, perhaps something biblical like wiping out all their descendants, siblings and their descendants.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sun Tsu

2400 years ago in his book The Art Of War, Sun Tsu explained All war is deception. Despite this ancient warning and despite militaries down the ages repeatedly getting caught deceiving both their enemies and their own people, Americans are still shocked when they catch the military lying yet again. Further, Americans are openly hostile to anyone who suggests the military may be deceiving the public on some particular issue. The business of militaries is bloody, violent and brutal. The public would never approve if they know what was really going on. So naturally the military lies. They believe these are necessary lies because they believe the lay public are too squeamish to permit hideous but necessary deeds.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Supporting the Troops

When Americans say they support the troopsthat means they support the troops in what they do, namely waging illegal aggressive wars, violating the Geneva conventions, using banned weapons, targeting civilians and torturing P.O.W.s., hardly part of the American self-image. Claiming to support the troops while simultaneously being opposed to the war is as silly as saying you support rapists, though you are opposed to rape. Americans are so deeply in denial, including left wingers like Al Franken, that they don’t even notice they are being ridiculous.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Surrendering Freedom

Consider that swimming pools, handguns and cars kill way way more people than terrorists. We need to get a grip and put the threat of terrorism in perspective rather spending unlimited resources and giving up freedom (the main reason to fight ISIS). Trump is a far bigger danger to my freedom than ISIS is.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sympathy For The Devil

Canadian security people shot Aaron Driver to death because to posted his plans to blow up a Toronto subway station to support ISIS. I have some sympathy for Mr. Driver. Canada, the USA, Britain and other western nations treated Afghanistan and Iraq abominably. They invaded them illegally in first strikes. In some ways, they behaving worse than Hitler, namely using banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). They targeted children and civilians, violating international law and routinely tortured all detainees.

I could see why he would be angry. I could see why he thinks the west should pay for what they did. However, his plan to blow up random civilians made utterly no sense. None of those people had anything to do with these war crimes. You would think he would want to punish those responsible, for example, by pushing for war crimes prosecutions.

Because Driver published his plans, it seems to me he did not plan to carry them though. He intended to be dramatically stopped. This was theatre taken for terrorism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Syria

Syria is a terrible mess. The following groups are trying to kill them off:

  1. Assad regime
  2. ISIS
  3. Russians by dropping chemical weapon barrel bombs.
  4. Americans by careless collateral damage

    Assad has killed four times as many as ISIS. The Americans consider Assad an ally because he is an enemy of ISIS.

    The only option the Syrians have is to leave the country, there are so many of them, the world refuses to absorb so many refugees.

    ~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Syria Options

Obama has 4 basic options to deal with Syria:

  1. Do nothing. This is what Canada, Britain, Russia and China want to do. This option would be very difficult for Obama’s machismo.
  2. Do some token damage. The problem is Assad would just retaliate with more gas attacks. Since the security council has vetoed military intervention, this and the following two options are illegal.
  3. Wipe out Syria’s ability to produce or deliver poison gas. The problem is, releasing it will kill all sorts of people as a side effect. Further, Assad could just go after his people with different types of atrocity.
  4. Wipe out Assad. This will create chaos. Assad has relatives just as sadistic as he is who will take over.

This strikes me as a no-win situation. I personally find Assad an insufferable prick. I hope whatever happens disables him from creating further suffering. All Obama can do is pick the least bad option, the option that kills the fewest innocent people.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Syrian Civil War

The Syrian Civil War has killed about 300,000 people and created 3 million refugees. Bashar al-Assad is mostly responsible. This is 85 times as much havoc as Osama bin Laden got up to. I think Assad deserves a Predator drone or a team of SEALs coming through his bedroom window.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Syrian War

The Syrian War has dragged on and on. Even after it ends, not much will have changed. I suggest the UN say to warring parties, You have six months to end your war by violence or diplomacy. At the end of the six months, if the war has not ended, we will send predator drones after the group leaders of each team until you are all dead. Time starts now.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Taliban Support

Obama’s plan to get the Afghans to take over the American war against the Taliban is as futile as Hitler convincing the French to fight against the French resistance. Obama forgets that the Taliban have the support of the Afghan majority. Without that support, the Taliban could not possibly have held the combined might of the USA, Britain and Canada at bay. The Karzai puppet government is a gang of monumentally corrupt drug and war lords. The Taliban, to our eyes, are completely unacceptable, but to the Afghans, Karzai is even more so.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Targeting Children

Americans claim they never target civilians, that they just kill children rarely as collateral damage. I know this to be a lie because I saw them do it with my own eyes. Likely you saw it too, but it did not register just what you were seeing. On 2003-03-20, the opening day of the Iraq war, pretty well everyone was huddled around their TV sets watching live the invasion of Iraq. I was watching with some ex-patriate Iraqis who were naïve enough to think Bush was going to liberate Iraq. Instead we watched him bomb the residential neighbourhoods of Baghdad. My companions screamed in terror as they watched their family and friends back home crushed to death in the houses and apartments along familiar streets. They were crying and weeping inconsolably. They felt they had been massively betrayed. Each time the Americans announced they had assassinated a resistance leader, they announced they had simultaneously killed a number of children because of cowardly remote-control warfare they indulge in. They knew that would happen. They must take responsibility for intending to kill the children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Targeting Civilians

Targeting civilians started as the laziness of collateral damage (killing civilians as a side effect). It goes back at least to WWII with the rocket bombing of London, the firebombing of Dresden and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In more recent times we have the US leveling of Fallujah and the attack on the MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) hospital and the ISIS shooting down an airliner full of young Russian tourists. Each side justifies it because the other side did it first. What they fail to consider is killing children and the elderly is a waste of munitions. It does nothing to weaken the enemy’s ability to wage war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Tears for American Nazis

Even Americans on the far left in American politics like Al Franken, Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow shed tears (have to pretend to shed tears?) for American soldiers who died in Iraq. They hold that the soldiers have no responsibility for their war crimes or their own deaths. The soldiers were good Nazis, just following orders. They pretend the soldiers were not fully aware the USA attacked Iraq, not the reverse. They pretend the soldiers did not know the aggressive (first strike) war was illegal and that aiding and abetting it made them war criminals guilty of a capital crime. They pretend that the Nuremberg trials were a state secret. They pretend the soldiers innocently thought they were defending the USA, even when the soldiers were fully aware all the Iraqis had to defend themselves with were kitchen-made IEDs. To exculpate the beloved can-do-no-wrong must-support-at-all-costs troops, even Al Franken, Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow go along, or pretend to go along, with the Bush’s big lie that the Iraq war was to defend the USA rather than to steal oil despite all the evidence to the contrary that even they personally uncovered.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Techno-War

The Chinese have been probing North American computers, learning how to take them over, shut them down or make them self destruct like the attack on Iran’s centrifuges. How much bigger hint do you need that when China goes to war with the USA it will do it by using its computers to shut down electric, water, traffic, air traffic control and weapons systems. It strikes me as foolhardy to give a rival open access to that information when there was never any effort to make those systems secure. The main deterrent for war is that the USA owes China so much money.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Territoriality

Most animals will defend their territory to the death against intruders. In addition, they will take over another’s territory if they can get away with it. Legality and morality are irrelevant. Humans usually behave the same way. They are just acting out their gift of evolutionary programming. For example, consider how Jews pushed Palestinians off their territory, and how Palestinians resisted with deadly force.

We humans are devising ever more lethal weapons. Using them to magnify territoriality will eventually drive us extinct.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Terrorism

A terrorist attack with 100 casualties is considered a much bigger deal than a military attack with 100 casualties. What is the difference?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Terrorist Politicians

Terrorists throughout the world are cheering as American politicians do their work for them by bankrupting the USA with endless, costly, pointless, illegal wars, destroying civil liberties as payoffs to corporations and denying medical care to desperately ill US citizens.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Terrorist Virtues

You could rant for hours about how deluded and wicked suicide terrorists are, but there are three character flaws you cannot accuse them of: cowardice, insincerity and greed.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Terrorist vs Auto Danger

There are under 1000 deaths a year world wide attributable to terrorists and 1,000,000 deaths attributable to vehicles. Yet the spending to stop terrorists dwarfs that to make vehicles safer. An automobile is 1000 times more likely to kill you than a terrorist, yet Americans fear terrorists far more than they do Hummers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Terrorists Ask the Wrong Question

The terrorists asks himself, Will my violence hurt those who oppose my cause? He fails to ask Will my violence promote my cause over the long run? or even more important Is this the most effective way to use my energy to promote my cause?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Terrorists?

Media people pretend to be surprised when there is a terrorist attack. They imply What a surprise! I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would attack us. They must be mad. However, I can easily think of some reasons:

This suggests a highly effective anti-terrorist strategy. Do not illegally invade other nations or support nations that do. People have to be enraged before they will consider suicide attacks to get even token revenge. It is not that much of a sacrifice for us to live up to our UN treaty that says we may not attack other nations unless they attack us first.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Terrorists?

A team of 240 undercover police talked two heroin addicts into blowing up the BC Legislature. The police came up with the plan, funded it, provided the T4 explosives, provided a safe house to build the bombs and paid for travel. You really have to wonder who is more responsible for the crime.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Testosterone

Testosterone makes males fight, dominate and bully each other. It makes them take life-threatening risks. It makes them abandon their mates to seek new ones. The levels of testosterone in human males were optimum for life as a caveman, but might be considered poisonous for an officer in charge of a nuclear arsenal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Theatre of War

On 2010-06-14, MSNBC TV news showed a firefight in Afghanistan between American soldiers and the Afghan resistance. The American commander took time out during the battle to do an interview, with the machine guns rattling in the background and two American soldiers hit as we watched. The term theatre of war takes on a new meaning.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

There is Nothing Immoral about Fighting Back

If you mug someone, steal everything he possesses, set his wife on fire, torture his son, blow up his parents or rape his daughter and he fights back with all his effort to stop you, he is not a bad guy Americans who support the Afghan and Iraq wars don’t understand this basic fact of morality.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

They Should Talk

Americans have such cheek for blaming the Taliban for blocking the peace process. The Americans were the ones who illegally invaded and installed Hamid Karzai as puppet dictator. What the Americans really mean by rejecting peace is the Taliban refuse to unconditionally surrender and accept the incredibly corrupt narcostate (Hillary Clinton’s assessment) government the Americans chose for them. The Afghans further stubbornly refuse to hand over control of their natural resources, namely lithium, to the Americans. The Americans have absolutely no moral right to even be in Afghanistan, much less kill people there. Logically, since they are 100% in the wrong, they are the block to peace.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Thinking Too Highly of Oneself

I find it amazing that the majority of Americans will make excuses for killing children in pursuit of cheaper oil, of allowing priests to molest children, for attacking other nations unprovoked, for laughing at the Geneva conventions as quaint, for condemning fellow citizens to die because they could not afford expensive medical treatments, for detaining and torturing children and teens en masse, for using demonically cruel banned weapons such as white phosphorous and napalm on women and children. When I was younger, I thought only Nazis or ancient Romans were brutal enough to behave that way. The strange thing is Americans don’t see themselves as unusually barbaric. They imagine they are magnanimous and benign. Nazis, too, thought extremely highly of themselves.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Thirsting

Even something as innocent sounding as thirsting, withholding water for a few days, is unimaginably horrible. You long to die. Being torn apart by tigers would be preferable. I know from personal experience. According to Frontline, Americans used this technique routinely on every detainee in Iraq. Because so few people have ever experienced torture, it is easy for the exposed torturers to convince the public they were merely causing extreme discomfort.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Threat of Hanging

American soldiers returning from Iraq face dangers even greater than they did in combat. Every last one of them is an international war criminal, guilty of a capital (death penalty) crime, namely aiding and abetting an aggressive (first strike) war. They are technically guilty even if they just peeled potatoes in Iraq. Many of them violated the Geneva Conventions. Some of these Geneva violations are also capital crimes. Others used banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). The USA uses its financial and military power to scoff at the World Court. However, the USA won’t won’t get away with this arrogance much longer. The USA won’t be the only superpower much longer. China has already eclipsed the USA is energy production. Russia has cornered the market on natural gas. The European Union is already more powerful than the USA by a number of measures. The USA is gripped by a severe recession that is shaking it to the core. Countries that respect the world court are treaty bound to arrest war criminals if they come onto their territory. American veterans might be wise to restrict foreign travel for the rest of their lives. Recall that some Nazis were not brought to justice for their aggressive war crimes until they were in their nineties. All the Nazis hanged were charged with the same crime, aiding and abetting an aggressive war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Threats From US Soldiers

The depravity of US soldiers astounds me. Not only do they target children, they threaten to kill me if I don’t pretend to approve.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Time to Bury The Hatchet

Dieppe was 75 years ago. The Germans are now our friends. Yet we still celebrate the old fight with the partisan enthusiasm of soccer hooligans. I think it is time to treat WWII as a failure of all humanity to deal with a charismatic lunatic, not that different from several current world leaders.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Timothy McVeigh, Pit Bull

The US government trained Timothy McVeigh in the art of mass murder in Desert Storm. This is a bit like buying a vicious pit bull then being surprised when it turns on you.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Today’s Soldiers ≠ WWII Soldiers

Americans constantly glorify their soldiers and try to equate them to the soldiers who defended America in WWII. There is no comparison. The soldiers of WWII had no choice. They had to defend their country from attack. The American soldiers of today are much more akin to the war-criminal soldiers of Germany and Japan who engaged in first strike imperial wars. They gladly chose to butcher, torture and steal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Toll Of War

We are bombarded every day with news of unspeakable cruelty. Here is an attempt to put it into perspective:

Conflict Deaths
9/11 3,500
US soldiers killed in combat in Iraq 3,532
Syrian rebellion 12,000
Libyan rebellion 30,000
Darfur 300,000
Civilians killed in the Iraq war 1,455,590

So in numeric terms, it is no contest; the Americans are by far the biggest killers on the planet and that does not even count Afghanistan.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Too Variable Skill

I refuse to believe the same people who masterminded 2001-09-11 trained the shoe and underpants bombers.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Top Seven Reasons the USA Should Invade Syria

  1. 2.5 billion barrels of oil are lying under the Syrian sand (no Iraq, but still).
  2. Syria has phosphates, chrome, manganese and iron.
  3. Obama needs a distraction from the economy.
  4. Contractors are getting antsy after the winddown of Iraq and Afghanistan.
  5. The Boston Marathon bombing gave Obama such a bump, he wants more Syrian terrorists.
  6. Syrians want Americans to bomb their homes and kill their kids so they can be free (of them).
  7. John McCain wants to invade to raise employment.
  8. President Bashar al-Assad has weapons of mass destruction and Donald Rumsfeld knows exactly where they are.
  9. President Bashar al-Assad is a royal asshole. He deserves to die (though not all the Syrians along with him).
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Torture

The ancient Mayans would pop the finger joints of captured kings, bind them into a ball and roll them down the temple steps; the Nazis would work and starve Jews to death. The Americans specialise in killing and torturing children. They used banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). I find the war crimes of the Americans the most odious. It is one thing to exact torment on your opponents and quite another on bystanders. Like the ancient Mayans, Americans don’t just kill, the want the deaths to be as painful as possible.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Torture By Denying Water

Americans routinely tortured every detainee in Iraq by denying them water while forcing them to sit in the full Iraqi sun. You can see if for yourself in the PBS Frontline documentary. If that has never been done to you, you have utterly no idea how horrible it is. I would sooner be eaten alive by tigers than live through four days of it again. The American military claim they tortured to extract information that would save American lives. However, American military experts have said that torture is ineffective for this. The person being tortured just says whatever he thinks his torturers want to hear. In the middle ages, the Inquisition discovered torture was effective for making people confess to any conceivable crime no matter how far fetched. If Americans truly were interested in extracting information, they would use brain scanning technology that makes it impossible to lie or to refuse to answer. It requires no violence. The purpose of torture then is terror. In the war against terror, the Americans have become terrorists themselves.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Torture Relativism

Nazis thought torture was OK, so long and Germans did it for the benefit of the Reich. Americans think torture is OK so long as Americans do it and the victims are Muslim or brown skinned. It does not matter who does it. It is still wrong.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Torture School

The United States openly operates a school for teaching torture techniques to right wing dictators. It is called the School Of the Americas. The United States openly uses torture at Guantánamo prison. We complain that the Germans did nothing about the concentration camps for Jews. The tortures conducted by the Americans are even worse and openly acknowledged. Some day the world will look on today’s Americans with even more contempt that we had for the sheep-like Germans under Hitler.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Torturers

I include as torturers:

I think the death penalty is appropriate for these people, not to punish them, but to be absolutely sure they never reproduce. It may even be justified to kill their children (though not their wives) to eliminate the possibility of any genes for that behaviour passing on. Vasectomy or castration is not sufficient in a world where even two males can conceive.

If governments refuse to prosecute these people, then I think vigilante action is justified. There is no point in punishing them with torture, just with death.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Torturers

What countries torture? USA under Bush, Iraq under Saddam, Chile under Pinochet, Zimbabwe under Mugabe, Uganda under Idi Amin, Myanmar under Pol Pot, Germany under Hitler. What countries routinely torture all detainees? USA. Not even Germany under Hitler did that.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Torturing Kids for Oil

Americans will never live down the shame that most of them went along with Bush killing and torturing kids to browbeat their parents into handing over their oil.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Torturing Teens

Why do Americans think it is perfectly OK for them torture teenagers in dungeons for years on end, but it is unspeakably evil for anyone else to do the same thing?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Toward Saner Terrorism

What sort of nincompoops sacrifice their lives just to blow up a group of random women buying produce? It is utterly pointless. If someone wants to sacrifice their lives fighting evil, why not take some true bad guys out with them, e.g. people who have ordered the butchery of tens of thousands of civilians or people who have poisoned the planet in ways that will hurt millions or at least soldiers and support staff invading their country?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Training Children

Children rehearse adult rôle s. When I was a child, girls rehearsed child rearing and cooking. Boys rehearsed driving trucks and flying airplanes. Both sexes rehearsed illegal business practices playing Monopoly. Today video games allow children to rehearse killing without remorse or motive, rape, theft and torture. The training works exceedingly well.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Training Psychos

Canadian Colonel Russell Williams confessed to 86 crimes including two murders and two sexual assaults and photographed himself masturbating during them. What do you expect? The Canadian government trained Colonel Williams to have no regard for human life or compassion. He needed this to wage war against people who were no threat to Canada. It is only natural he would retain those same attitudes once he came home.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Training Sadists to Kill Children

Even the sadistic people who volunteer for the military don’t murder children easily. They need boot camp, which uses many of the techniques of brainwashing, to condition them to do it on command without hesitation.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Traitors

It makes sense to have laws against saboteurs, those who pretend to be loyal citizens but interfere with the war effort, other than by protest, but I think it should be perfectly legal to leave one’s country and join the enemy, even ISIS. If you disagree, that means you think it should have been illegal for Jews and gays to leave Nazi Germany and fight with the allies.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Treason

I think we should have a second look at treason.

  1. People who criticise their country, e.g. complain about atrocities, needless civilian casualties, the pointlessness of the war in general. These people are not a danger even if they have close ties to the country being attacked. They help the country avoid doing things they will regret later.
  2. People who want to fight for the other side. We should just send them away and tell them they no longer have citizenship. We will treat them identically to other soldiers fighting on the other side as soon as they land. We put huge amounts of effort into detecting such people, but they are actually little danger. The message behind this gentle treatment is they are not a serious threat.
  3. People who want to commit acts of serious vandalism (such as blowing up the Hoover dam) and acts of terrorism (killing civilians). Small groups of these people can cause major havoc. We need to detect and detain such people.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Treating Mexico Like Afghanistan

Zambada García Surely by now Americans are sick to death of the consequences of drug smuggling from Mexico. The biggest Mexican drug lord at the time of writing is Ismael Zambada García. Imagine if Obama said to Mexico, You have 48 hours to capture him and hand him over. Screw the extradition hearing. We are not prepared to present no steekin’ evidence. The Mexicans would be aghast, scarcely able to believe their ears. They might offer to let the America have a go at him, protesting What you are demanding is almost impossible. García is no ordinary criminal and he may well be hiding outside Mexico. Then Obama would invade and America would occupy Mexico ever after and sell off all its resources, especially oil. I think you might find a 10,000 Americans who would protest Obama’s behaviour, even if just on the Tea Party everything-Obama-does-is-wrong principle. Yet Bush did something even more illegal. He demanded the same thing of Afghanistan, but was also unwilling to negotiate an extradition treaty first. Further, the USA refused Afghanistan’s offer hold an ad hoc extradition hearing to present evidence. Then USA refused the Afghanistan’s offer to turn bin Laden over to a third country for trial. Further, the Afghans could have correctly said, The American CIA trained and funded Noriega, Saddam and bin Laden. They are your problem to put down, not ours. The only American who dares to question this illegality is Noam Chomsky

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Treaty Breakers

Americans believe that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to them, even though they signed a treaty that trumps the constitution saying they would abide by them. You might say then that Americans are a nation of outlaws.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Trial for bin Laden

Even though bin Laden was assassinated, there still should be a trial to reveal the evidence for and against that he was behind 2001-09-11. All we have is Bush’s word on it, which is worth nothing since the Bush very rarely told the truth.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Truth in Advertising

Truth in advertising department. A TV US military recruiting ad shows a young man saying When I enlisted in the National Guard, I never thought I’d be saving lives. Presumably he expected to be sent to Iraq to slaughter people.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Trying Gadafi

If Muammar Gadafi had been tried at the international court in the Hague, it would have brought us closer to the day when American war criminals were also prosecuted.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Turn About is Fair Play

If Americans insist on routinely torturing every Muslim soldier and civilian they detain and detaining Muslims indefinitely without charge or trial, Americans have no grounds to complain if Muslims throughout the world eventually start doing the same thing back.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Twisted Values

Americans are truly weird. They pull back in horror when someone says nation building but have not the tiniest twinge of conscience at bombing a defenseless country for a decade for no apparent reason.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Two Filthy Facts About Soldiers

It is amazing how strenuously soldiers will deny two obvious facts:

  1. Soldiers kill people for a living.
  2. Soldiers enlist because they want to kill people.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Two Types Of Evil Nations

There are two kinds of evil nations, those who make lives miserable for their own citizens and those that make misery for the citizens of other countries. The United States is the most evil nation in history of the second type, simply because they are the most militarily and financially powerful nation of all time and because they have chosen conspicuous consumption as the national virtue and unregulated capitalism as the state religion. The irony is because of the power of propaganda, they see themselves as the greatest benefactors of all time.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Two-Faced Obama

Obama completely misrepresented himself in the presidential election. He billed himself as pro-peace. He claimed to be for the little guy in battles with the insurance companies, but when he got into office:

He does not deserve a second term, but for the exact opposite reason the Republicans claim. We should have expected this betrayal way back when we discovered who funded his presidential campaign.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Types of War

Some of the types of war:

Any country that belongs to the UN signed a treaty saying it would never resort to war, except defensive. Of course, the NATO countries, especially the USA, do it all the time. Who is powerful enough to stop them? With the precedent set, presumably so will China when they become the #1 superpower.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Tyrant Tactics

To make it easier for his minions to torment victims, a tyrant denies the victims sanitation, clean clothes, a comb and a razor.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Unconscious Death Wish

Because of the atrocities of the Afghan and Iraq wars, America is the most hated country since Nazi Germany. How do the Americans react? By killing themselves off by refusing themselves health care and by arming lunatics and felons with the most advanced firearms.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Underestimating Victims

A tiny impoverished country, Afghanistan, was able to defeat the Russians and later the Americans partly because the bigotry of the invaders lead them to underestimate the Afghans.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Underestimating your Enemy

Underestimating your enemy is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in war. Racism is the easiest road to that error.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Undeserving Vets

People often say we should treat vets better than others because they were willing to lay down their lives to protect our freedoms. This is nonsense. No vet since WWII fought in a war where our freedoms were at risk. We started all wars since. We attacked for various economic motives. We were never in any danger. The vets knew that too. They fought for much less noble motives, mainly because they liked killing. Yes, they put themselves at risk, but they did it for selfish motives.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Uneconomic War

The American military is like a teenager who spends $30 winning a $3 plush toy at a carnival. The American military have become obsessed with winning the Afghan and Iraq wars, the have lost site of the prize (lithium in Afghanistan and oil in Iraq). Like the teenager they are dragging the fight one merely to save face.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Unfulfilled Sadist

A soldier can in a day commit a rape, a murder and a torture and go to bed satisfied. But a cold-blooded sadist like George W. Bush could order the genocide of million, without any pleasure. He went to bed unfulfilled aching for something stronger.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Universal Fix

Just because a situation is intolerable does not mean that randomly killing civilians will make it any better.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Universality

The principle of universality says you must judge your own military actions as if your enemy had done them to you. For example, what would you think had Iraq attacked America, killed 8% of the population, sold off all its oil resources, patented all its historic seed strains and sold them off and occupied it for 15 years on the ground the USA might be harbouring nuclear weapons?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Universality

Universality is a philosophical principle that cuts to the quick in deciding if a given policy is fair. You must apply the same rules to your own and others’ behaviour. Any measure applied to gay people, Hispanics, women, Muslims etc. must also be applied to everyone.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Unnecessary Submarines

The Prime Minister said that unless Canada’s submarine program starts functioning properly very soon, it will be scrapped. This screams to me that the program is optional. We would have been much better off from the getgo spending the money elsewhere. This also suggests the F35 is probably equally optional.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Unocal Motive

We all know why the USA is occupying Afghanistan:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Unprovoked Attacks

When a soldier enlists to attack a country that was no risk to his country, his country is really doing him a favour. They are giving a sadist an opportunity to rape and kill without legal consequences. If, he gets injured, or stricken with PTSD/paralysing guilt, the soldier should not have the same rights for financial and medical support for him and his family for the rest of his life that a real vet would deserve.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Unreasonable Americans

Imagine how rude and nutty it would be if the USA told Mexico, You have three days to catch all the drug dealers in Mexico and hand them over to us in chains. We are not prepared to even give you a list of who we want or to present any evidence they committed crimes in the USA.

That is what the USA did to Afghanistan, demanding they catch and hand over bin Laden and his Al Qaeda supporters. He turned out to be very hard to catch, even with the full power of the US military looking for him. What the US actually did was even nuttier because the USA had no extradition treaty, it refused to negotiate one and it refused Afghanistan’ offer hold an ad hoc extradition hearing to present evidence. Then USA refused the Afghanistan’s offer to turn bin Laden over to a third country for trial. It demanded Afghanistan violate international law to comply with American demands. On top of this, the US occupied the Afghanistan ever since, butchering hundreds of people daily, justifying this mayhem because Afghanistan did not and could not comply with that ridiculous demand. By the way, the USA has never shown anyone the evidence that bin Laden masterminded 2001-09-11 without inside help.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Unsatisfactory Punishment

Seeing a torturer tortured is an unsatisfactory resolution, even when the torture is delivered by the natural universe, such as a festering leg (King Henry VIII) or Cheney’s artificial heart. The torturer simply endures his pain. He does not see his torment in any way connected with the pain he has inflicted on others.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

US Empire

The USA has 800 military bases in 63countries. (1,400 and 120 according to Julian Assange.) Obviously the USA is an empire, not quite like Rome or Britain, but one where a country exerts global commercial and military control. Chalmers Johnson says there area about 1000 bases when you include the covert ones.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

US Military Is For Offence

For the purpose of defence, nearly all of the US military is superfluous. No country has attacked the USA since it acquired nukes. They all know that if they attacked and did any serious damage, the USA would annihilate them in minutes with a rain of ICBMs. Only a diffuse, non-national, terrorist organisation dare attack. The military is primarily for foreign offensive wars to acquire natural resources. The nuclear umbrella allows the USA to preemptively and illegally attack other countries without risking counter attacks on its own soil.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

US Responsible For Iranian Nukes

centrifuge The image to the right is a centrifuge. North Korea unveiled third generation centrifuges capable of enriching uranium which could be used for nuclear power or nuclear bombs. The United States has cried foul. It is regrettable but hardly foul. Why? In his state of the union axis of evil speech, President Bush promised to annihilate Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Iraq is rubble. Iran and North Korea are still standing but only because they have a tiny nuclear threat. Obama has not rescinded Bush’s promise. The United States has enough nukes to wipe out humanity many times over. It and its nuclear puppet Israel threaten other nations with preemptive nuclear annihilation. Under those conditions, you could make a case it becomes rational for other nations to seek a nuclear deterrent. It is irrational for the USA to expect other nations to disarm while it maintains such a grossly lethal arsenal, not just a minimal deterrent.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The USA is a Bully

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The USA’s Anti-Democratic Blunder

In the 1960s there was a civil war in Viet Nam. Had the USA lets things be, the majority in Viet Nam would most likely have prevailed. However, Kennedy decided he knew better than the people of Viet Nam what was good for them. He wanted to tip the scales in favour of the less popular dictator, Diem and sent advisors This was a violation of the democratic principle of letting others choose their own leaders. It was a disaster for everyone.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Use Of Intervention

The ghastly fighting in Syria calls out for intervention. Three thoughts:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

USO Tours

Some conservative people have done USO tours who you would expect to promote war: Bob Hope, John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Clint Eastwood, Roy Rogers, Randy Travis… But others such as Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Billy Joel, Al Franken, Marilyn Monroe, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr., Dana Carvey and Steven Colbert were not thinking. Why on earth would they encourage war criminals who have all committed a capital crime, namely adding and abetting an aggressive war, to rape and murder still more children? Such butchers are the last people on earth I would want to cheer up. It is not like WWII when they were defending the USA.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vampire Myth

The vampire myth is a metaphor for soldiers and other serial killers who cannot help themselves from killing and hurting people.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vanity and War

Can you think of anyone who started a war who was not pathologically vain?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Veterans Have No Honour

The Canadian and American veterans of the Korean, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars have no honour. None of these countries attacked North America. None of these countries were even a threat to North America. Canada and the USA attacked them with illegal first strikes. Such wars are technically called aggressive. Anyone who aids or abets such a war, even by peeling potatoes, commits a capital (hanging) war crime. Canada and the USA both signed treaties with the UN agreeing to this. Treaties trump even the constitution.

Granted the United States protects its citizens from prosecution at the world court in the Hague, but that does not change the fact its soldiers are war criminals. All the Nazi criminals at the end of WWII were hanged after being charged with aiding and abetting an aggressive war. It makes no sense to honour the veterans of any of these illegal wars.

Surely all these soldiers knew they were the aggressors. They knew their homeland was not being attacked. Why did they agree to go to the other side of the earth to kill millions of people mostly civilians, mostly children? Possibly adventure, sadism, money or mindless patriotism. George W. Bush attacked Afghanistan for its rare minerals and Iraq for its oil. These are not honourable motives.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vets

Vets typically demand premium care. They even expect god to bless them specially since they are so heroic. I think they don’t deserve any special attention at all. Vets of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars went half way around the earth to kill and torture men, women and children who had done nothing to harm the USA. What other than sadism could have motivated them?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vets Deserve Death

If somebody skydives into a volcano and gets killed or thoroughly injured, huge outpourings are sympathy are not the first reaction that comes to mind. They did not have to do that. There was no benefit to it other than the thrill. They knew perfectly well the odds of harm. That is just the natural consequences of such behaviour. I think vets should be treated the same way. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq attacked the USA. Going there to kill people was not necessary. Soldiers were not drafted. International law considers it a war crime (aiding and abetting an aggressive war) especially way the war was prosecuted with routine torture and banned weapons. It is time to tell these birds they were lucky to get off as lightly as they did after committing a capital crime and to shut up and stop whining.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vets Deserve Shit

The most important fact in considering the veterans of the Afghan war is that it was illegal because it was aggressive first strike. Afghanistan did not attack us, we attacked them unprovoked. According to Chrétien, the only reason to participate was Bush twisted our arms.

Aiding or abetting such a war is a capital war crime.

Thus honouring Canada’s vets is analogous to honouring German or Japan’s WWII vets. I don’t think we should do it.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vets Shamed Their Country

American vets of the Viet Nam War, the Afghan war and the Iraq war did not serve their country, they shamed it, just as did the German vets of WWII.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vets, Get Lost!

Veterans of the Afghan war injured, killed and tortured men, women and children who were no threat to Canada. I did not want those Afghans harmed. How dare Afghan vets beg me for honour, handouts and special benefits.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Victors Warp The Story

You can be fairly sure that the victors were not nearly as heroic as advertised and the vanquished not nearly as dastardly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Viet Nam Memorial

The Germans have no memorial to WWII comparable to the American Viet Nam Memorial. Americans still stubbornly pretend what they did in Viet Nam was legal, moral and heroic. Eventually, families will petition to have names removed from the wall. They would wish to disassociate themselves from war criminal ancestors, much the way they disassociate themselves from slave-owning ancestors.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vilify Your Way To Power

Adolf Hitler was a nutty right-wing politician who rose to power by vilifying all Jews. Newt Gingrich is a nutty right-wing politician attempting to rise to power by vilifying all Muslims.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Vilifying Suicide Bombers

Americans and Israelis promote the idea that killing a random group of people, if it involves suicide, is immoral where it is heroic otherwise. This is nonsense. The suicide proves sincerity and offers inherent retribution. Killing random groups of people is wrong, period, no matter how you do it. This is just American and Israeli propaganda to justify their war crimes trying to make them look different from those of their adversaries.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Virtual Torture

The US Military is working on technology to implant false memories. They will we be able to use it to virtually torture someone, to bulk traumatise them with false memories of being tortured.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

vs

A terrorist group in the middle east.

Want to Rescue?

A US Military recruiting ad suggests that recruits will spend most of their time rescuing people from natural disasters. However, they do this so rarely, they had no footage for the spot, so they did it all with computer animation. If you want to rescue people, join the Coast Guard, become a firefighter or a policeman, or any one of many specialised rescue teams. The military’s primary job is killing people.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Wanting To Fly

I wonder how often some teenager infected with the desire to fly joined the air force only to discover they had a much darker purpose in mind for him — randomly killing civilians in some country whose oil the USA coveted.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War = Terrorism

War is just well-funded terrorism. It is no more respectable.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Accomplishing Nothing

After 16 years and 6 months of occupation, Afghanistan is the worst country on earth for women to live. Americans are laughable when they try to justify extending the Afghan war as necessary for women’s rights. Karzai, the American-appointed dictator, imposes the exact same Shari’a law that the Taliban did. Americans are sanctioning the beating of women who show their faces in public.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War and Unemployment

Obama is reluctant to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Iraq because that makes the unemployment figures worse.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Crimes

Almost no Americans are aware that it is an international capital (hanging) war crime to aid and abet a first strike at some other nation. That crime has been interpreted as broadly writing propaganda. Literally even peeling potatoes is aiding and abetting an invasion/occupation. Oddly, American are commonly aware that Nazis were hanged at the Nuremberg trials on just this charge, but they somehow imagine Americans are immune to the law because of their inherent wonderfulness. When the UN was formed, the nations of the world agreed to freeze all boundaries to avoid future borders wars. The UN also made it illegal for a country to attack another first. Then they broke the spirit of their own law by encouraging Jews to invade Palestine. Of course, the USA attacks other nations all the time. It is not that the USA has some special dispensation to do this; it is simply that might makes right. Americans are also aware that prominent Republican hawks such as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kissinger… avoid visiting Germany because they fear the Germans will arrest them for war crimes. At some time in future, the USA may not be quite so powerful, then a backlog of prosecutions will deal with a lifetime of war criminals.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Crimes

The United States, Britain, France and Israel have all conducted illegal aggressive (first strike) wars. They are thus the last nations that should be entrusted with nuclear weapons. Further, they have no moral ground to demand other nations such as Iran to forgo nuclear weapons, especially when they have threatened first strike nuclear attack.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Criminal Vets

When I point out to Americans and Canadians that aiding and abetting aggressive (first strike) war is a capital offence and hence most of the current American and Canadian vets are guilty of a hanging crime because they participated in the Viet Nam, Afghanistan or Iraq wars and every Nazi hanged at the end of WWII was charged with only this offence, I get several responses:

Afghanistan did not attack the USA on 2001-09-11. The official story is that Al Qaeda did, not Afghanistan. Bush said he thought bin Laden was hiding in Afghanistan. It turned out he was in Pakistan. Then the USA attacked the Taliban, the government of Afghanistan, whom Bush did not even allege to have any rôle whatsoever in 2001-09-11. This is like attacking Argentina because of a rumor Pablo Escobar was hiding there. It was a resource war. bin Laden was just an excuse to invade. Even after bin Laden was dead, the war plodded on.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Destroys Ecosystems

War would be not quite so terrible if it just reduced populations without destroying ecosystems.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Duration

America’s war against Viet Nam was its longest war, lasting from the Gulf of Tonkin incident on 1964-08-02 to the truce on 1973-01-27, a total of 8 years, 5 months and 25 days. The war against Afghanistan started on 2001-10-07 and has been waging 16 years, 6 months and 30 days 0. Will it beat Viet Nam in the Guinness Book of Records of pointless wars?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Fashions

Only Americans march into the desert to wage war wearing forest green and brown camouflage.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War for No Official Reason

The thing that makes absolutely no sense about Americans is that they learned almost immediately that Iraq had no WMDs and Bush had lied to them about the need for war. However, even though they knew they had no reason for the war, they kept sacrificing their children to fight it and pouring trillions of dollars into it for 15 years with only token protest. It appears, to Americans, war is the normal state and they need a constitutional amendment to end one.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Guilt

Nobody knows better than the soldiers themselves what evils they committed in Afghanistan and Iraq. We know it is much worse than usual because so many returning soldiers now commit suicide or wallow in despair and guilt.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War in Mali

The pro war folks have done a bang up job making the case for a war in Mali. The bad guys are so mean, they won’t even let people listen to Mali’s spectacular music. There is no shortage of bad guys in the world. Consider Robert Mugabe, Assad, Mohamed Morsi, Omar al-Bashir, Yoweri Museveni, Netenyahu, Kim Jong-un… How do you decide which one to bomb first? First pick the ones with oil (Iraq), then the ones with lithium (Afghanistan) (needed for batteries), then coltan (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Afghanistan) (niobium and tantalum needed for semiconductors) then, of course, gold. Mali is the third largest producer of gold in Africa.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War On Terror

If a politician asks you to sacrifice some of your civil liberties for the war on terror, consider two things:

  1. The terrorists allegedly want to deny your liberties. If you voluntarily give up your civil rights, you have just surrendered to the terrorists.
  2. Are terrorists a big enough threat to justify giving up your liberties? Consider that cars, bathtubs, swimming pools, donuts and hand guns have all killed far more people than terrorists. Are you willing to give them up for security too?
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Propaganda

War propaganda uses bombast, music and ceremonies to sell war. It can even sell aggressive (first strike) war such as the American invasions of Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Iraq. You would think when you were defending your country the key is to do whatever is necessary to deter the enemy, and not waste effort on anything else. War propaganda convinces the combatants that they must eliminate the non-combatants including the elderly, women and children (as with the Dresden and Hiroshima bombings). They must torture the enemy with electric cords and with banned weapons such as white phosphorous. These are wasteful emotional indulgences. Propaganda portrays them as heroic.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Propels Evolution

I suspect we will discover that humans evolved complex social co-operation primarily because larger, better organised groups can more easily kill off neighbouring groups and take over their territory.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Starters Do Not Deserve Honour

I think it absurd to sanctify political leaders after their deaths, such as Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, when they started a war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The War That Keeps On Chugging

So how is the occupation of Afghanistan going after 16 years and 6 months ? The war is still going, even though its alleged goal, killing bin Laden has already been accomplished. It has been humiliating for the biggest military on earth to be stalemated by an impoverished third world country less than a tenth its size.

The USA demanded Afghanistan capture and turn over bin Laden without the extradition treaty and extradition hearing required by international law. Then USA refused the Afghanistan’s offer to turn bin Laden over to a third country for trial. It turned out Bush was demanding the impossible. It turned out bin Laden was extremely hard to track down and, further, he was not even in Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan did not instantly comply to this illegal demand, Bush used it as justification for an invasion on 2001-10-07. Unocal still does not have its free pipeline right of way, one of the major unstated motives for the war. Heroin production is up from near zero to #1 in the world, over a trillion dollars a year. The drug trade has ensnared Afghan and American alike in massive corruption. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls Afghanistan a narcostate. On 2011-05-01, a strike force of Seals (a type of high-status soldier) assassinated bin Laden in Pakistan. Now we will never find out how he pulled off the greatest terrorist attack of all time, 2001-09-11, with his rag tag band of cave dwellers, a feat German intelligence considered utterly impossible.

As of 2011-08-27, the Afghans managed to kill 2,613 invaders. There is no democracy. The country is run by a dictator, Hamid Karzai and his family. Afghanistan has become the most corrupt nation on earth.

The USA has spent more money on the occupation than it would take to fix most American and planetary ills. The American public still erroneously blame Afghanistan for 2001-09-11 even though they know perfectly that the hijackers were Saudi — not an Afghan among them, idiotically conflating all Muslims. Americans are still in deep denial that they fought a completely pointless and illegal war.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The War That Keeps on Chugging

So how is the occupation of Iraq going after 15 years and 1 month ? The war is still going, even though its alleged goal, toppling Saddam, was accomplished almost immediately. It has been humiliating for the biggest military on earth to be stalemated by an impoverished third world country less than a tenth its size.

Just before the invasion, Saddam offered to surrender. Bush turned him down and bombed Baghdad’s residential neighbourhoods on 2003-03-20, broadcast live on CNN. Saddam immediately went into hiding. Saddam was captured in his spider hole on 2003-12-13. He was hanged on 2006-12-30. We discovered that Bush was indeed lying about Saddam’s nukes, ambiguously referred to as WMD s. Saddam did not even have any poison gas left over from that George Herbert Walker Bush gave him on credit to attack Iran.

As of 2010-05-08, the Iraqis managed to kill 4,404 invading Americans. There is no democracy, unless you count the sort of democracy enjoyed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Iraq has become one of the most corrupt nations on earth.

From a booty point of view, things went rather well. The famous Iraq National Museum was looted. On 2011-06-23 (the same day Obama announced the troop withdrawal) Iraq’s remaining oil reserves were sold off to American and European oil companies. Monsanto now owns all of Iraq’s seed genome and has a monopoly to sell seeds in Iraq which it contaminates with a terminator gene to force repurchase each year. Farmers can no longer use their own seeds they have developed over millennia.

The USA has spent more money on the occupation than it would take to fix most American and planetary ills. It is gradually coming clear to the American public that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 2001-09-11. That notion got started with Cheney’s dissembling. Americans are beginning to admit that they fought a completely pointless and illegal war. Americans excuse themselves for the error my claiming the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim, whether his country attacked or not.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War is Too Safe

In Napoléon ’s day, generals met the night before a battle to finalise the time and place. Bystanders could watch from the sidelines. The people who died in battle were the players, those who enjoyed carnage. From a Darwinian point of view, we purged the gene pool of its most bloodthirsty citizens. Today, bloated teens play video games in complete safety in the basement of the CIA building in Langley Virginia, which control drones to kill families in Pakistan. We are now carefully preserving the genes of psychopaths.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War Tricks

Imagine you were a small country or organisation at war with the most powerful military on earth. How could you possibly win? You would have to use psychological warfare to trick your opponent into spending $1,000,000 for every $1 you spent. You would have to trick your opponent into trampling the rights of their own citizens so they came to see their own government as the enemy.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War With Briefcases

Today, Caesar’s plundering legions would arrive in black limos carrying titanium laptops. President Obama announced the phase-out of the Iraq war on the exact same day bureaucrats in his administration announced that all of Iraq’s remaining oil reserves were going up for auction to European and American oil interests.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

War With Iran

Yes, the USA has a bigger military that almost everyone else on earth put together, but try as they might for a decade they could not defeat two tiny unarmed countries, Afghanistan and Iraq. What makes them think they can defeat Iran? Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran has rockets, planes, missiles and bombs. Iran has friends — Russia and China. Its sunburn missiles can sink a destroyer with one shot. It can block the Straits of Hormuz thus strangling most of the world’s oil supply. It has had a decade to prepare since Bush promised to annihilate them in his Axis of Evil speech. It has fortified its defences underground. They may even have nukes. Trade insults, not bombs.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Warring Countries Lie

If you look back on history, countries at war lie through their teeth about everything to do with the war: reasons for it, cost, casualties, atrocities, odds of winning… Sun Tsu millennia ago observed All war is deception. Logically, Americans should expect no more truth from their leaders and media than the Germans got from Hitler, yet they naïvely treat every word as unimpeachable truth.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Wars are Like Fights

Fights are easy to start. All it takes is a scowl or a shove. Fights are easy to keep going. All the blows received so far are sufficient justification to keep the fight going. Wars work the same way.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Wars of Separation

Some of the longest and most vicious wars are over separation. What we need is a formal, civilised process for separation.

  1. Hold a U.N.-monitored vote of the people in the region considering separation.
  2. If more that 60% vote for separation, the separation process begins. You need more than 50% because this is like a constitutional change and because you don’t want it drifting back under 50% shortly after the separation.
  3. There is a binding arbitration process to divvy up the wealth and debts.

That would redirect energy into politics rather than violence.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Waterboard Dick Cheney

It would be fitting if Dick Cheney were water boarded to get him to confess to his war crimes.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

We Are Here To Help

It is naïve of Americans to expect the Afghans to believe the lie that the USA is there to help them when has been so much killing, torture, violence against children and desecration of Islam. The Afghans never asked for help. The Taliban continue to this day to be the most popular political faction in Afghanistan. If that were not so, the Taliban would have utterly no chance against the combined might of the Afghan people, the USA, Britain, France and Canada.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

We Are War Criminals

Attacking other countries unprovoked is illegal. That makes the USA, Canada and Britain a nation of war criminals. None of us had any right to invade Afghanistan or Iraq, much less occupy them for years, much less use banned weapons and torture. We are the bad guys. We are in an analogous position to the Germans in the time of Hitler who did nothing to stop him.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

We Can Do No Evil

It is really quite odd that even when people learn about the evil their military and intelligence organisations indulge in, they imagine these groups are motivated by the purest of motives and other countries’ by the most dastardly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Weapon of Peace

The America military tell me nukes are weapons of peace. If that were true, then they should want to see that everyone gets one. They are weapons of hegemony.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Weapon Responsibility

I takes many hands to fire a missile and kill a child:

Without each contributor doing his bit, the missile could not be fired. However, most North Americans put 100% of the moral responsibility on the politicians.

I think the weapons factory owners especially deserve a significant share of the blame. They sell to both sides in conflicts. They foment conflicts. They bribe politicians to buy unnecessary weapons which triggers an arms race.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What American Cowards Mean by self-defence

American soldiers justify shooting children or women on the grounds they were carrying weapons or might have hidden weapons. They consider this self-defence. Try that defence inside the USA, as George Zimmerman is attempting. Further, this is no more self-defence than a bank robber shooting a guard. American soldiers have absolutely no business being in Iraq. Their very presence is a capital war crime.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What Americans Mean By Enemy

Americans use the term the enemy differently from the rest of the world. Others use it to refer to a country attempting to invade or destroy their own, one with at least some chance of succeeding. Americans use the term more broadly to mean anyone who resists American will. It can refer to a rival, a victim who resists exploitation or even someone who hurls impotent insults like Chavez.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What is a Crime?

What do we consider a crime? Most people did not consider drinking liquor a crime during prohibition. Prohibition does not work unless nearly everyone is in favour. Most Americans today condone tearing children to pieces in front of their parents, so long as it is American soldiers or mercenaries doing it and if they do it from a distance with explosives or chemicals weapons. It does not matter that according to international law, these are capital crimes. The soldiers will not be prosecuted until the vast majority wants those crimes prosecuted. People don’t want to condemn the soldiers because they too are partly responsible. Some really damaging behaviour will never be criminal, such as polluting, spewing greenhouse gases, deliberately wasting energy, taking so much from others they perish, priests having their way with children, having litter-sized families, refusing to inoculate… The crimes are too popular with a substantial minority or even majority.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What Did You Expect?

If you train and pay soldiers to torture, rape or kill civilians including children, you should not be the least surprised when they continue to do it when their tour is over. That sort of evil is addictive. It is deeply corrosive.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What Died With bin Laden?

Now that bin Laden was assassinated, we will never see the evidence how he masterminded 2001-09-11 without inside help.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What Do You Mean by Expensive?

At $9 billion, the Hadron Collider is the most expensive scientific experiment in history. Compare that with the approximately $1000 billion spent blowing up goat herders in Afghanistan and Iraq.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What If China Behaved Like America?

What if China had used stealth technology to enter the USA without permission to kill someone they considered an arch criminal. There would be calls to nuke China at this assault on sovereignty. Obama’s invasion of Pakistan was crazy grandstanding that risked nuclear war with Pakistan. Obama lucked out. Risking nuclear war to nail one man was reckless. That is why he had to monitor the operation step by step, ready to mollify the Pakistani leadership should they have been so furious they were ready to use their nukes. Cut it out you American yahoos! You do not have the right to risk my life as a Canadian in your cowboy escapades.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What Motivates Suicide Attackers

Could you imagine a situation where you would sign up for a suicide mission? Would you do it to save your family? To oust an invader plundering your country? To avenge the death of your first love? To pay back people who had anally raped you as a child? To destroy those who had tortured you? Because you though it just might help you get laid? You would not do it casually. If we want to stop suicide attacks, we will have to investigate why attackers think such drastic measures are necessary.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What Would You Say to A Child Rapist?

What would you say to someone who had raped, tortured, mutilated or murdered a child, or helped someone else do so? You get a chance every time you meet a member of the armed services of the USA, Canada or Britain.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

What’s the Score?

Americans treat war the same way they treat professional sports. They just want to know what the score is. No other details are of interest. Why the war started is irrelevant. The cost of fighting the war is no object. What winning the war would accomplish has no relevance. Team spirit is sufficient justification for torture, child rape and genocide. As coach Henry Russell Sanders put it, Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

When Americans Avoid War

One of the most disgusting things about Americans is the only reason they ever avoid war is injured pride when they bog down in a stalemate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

When it is OK to Plunder

The Romans told themselves it was OK to plunder the surrounding territories because they were Roman and the people they plundered were mere barbarians (wore beards). The European settlers told themselves it was OK to push native American off their lands because they were Christian and the natives were not. The Germans told themselves it was OK to invade surrounding countries because they were the master race and needed more lebensraum (living room). The Jews told themselves it was OK to steal Palestinian lands because they were god’s chosen people and the Palestinians were not. The Americans told themselves it as OK to invade Afghanistan and Iraq unprovoked and confiscate their natural resources because they were American and the Afghans and Iraqis were not. Apparently, entire populations will excuse themselves for stealing and genocide for the most trivial of excuses.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Whistleblower Blues

Imagine you were a whistleblower. When you went to court, you discovered the judge, the prosecutor and the jury and their bosses were all people you had outed as criminals. You would not expect much of a fair trial. This is roughly what happened to Bradley/Chelsea Manning who has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for exposing widespread criminal activity. The government claims the law demands Manning look the other way. The Nuremberg principles of international law say he is personally responsible. Just following orders is no excuse for letting crimes pass. Thankfully Obama pardoned Chelsea after 8 years.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Whistleblowers

The American government likes to protect war criminals by charging whistle blowers like Bradley/Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange with crimes like espionage, terrorism and divulging state secrets then torturing them when they capture them. They never charge the war criminals they expose. They deserve a reward, not a prison sentence. Had Hitler won WWII, that is exactly what he would have done to protect his war criminals.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

White Poppies

white poppy We had two really nasty fights with Germany, one 99 years ago and a second 72 years ago. Every year, in Canada, on November 11, we celebrate our victory over the Germans and tell tales of how evil the Germans were and how heroic we were to firebomb Dresden targeting women and children. Granted, the Germans were rather badly behaved, but since then we have done the same sort of things as Hitler’s invasion of Poland claiming self-defence — namely invading other countries such as Cuba, Viet Nam, Grenada, Afghanistan and Iraq unprovoked and even worse things, including using chemical weapons, using banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). We routinely tortured detainees, stole natural resources, raped children… and in general treated the Geneva conventions as quaint. The people who fought in WWI and WWII are for the most part long dead. We are good friends with the current generation of Germans. It is immature and self-indulgent to keep rubbing our friends’ noses in the sins of their dead grandfathers. Psychologists tell us it is pathological to nurse memories of injustices even a year old. What we are doing is certifiable.

Why do we do it? It is a Pavlovian attempt to make the phony John Wayne heroism associated with those wars rub off on this generation’s sordid and illegal wars such as Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq. That is why I refuse to wear the red poppy or engage in any of this adulation of centenarian war criminals. Please join me in protesting this insanity by wearing a white poppy instead of the traditional red one used to glorify and justify war. The original intent of Remembrance day was to remember how horrible the wars were so we would never repeat them. Its has been turned on its head. Remembrance Day is used to portray war as a grand adventure.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

White Supremacists

What motivates white supremacists? Studies have discovered white supremacists experienced various forms of child abuse. Christian parents beat them imagining that was the proper think to do. They grow up as juvenile delinquents. As adults, they feel a generalised rage. White supremacy helps them focus that anger and find a target to blame it on. Beating them up, shouting at them or focussing the media on them just makes matters worse. They interpret attacks on white supremacist ideology as an attack on their identity. They just recoil. What you have to do is help them reconnect with whatever love is in their lives. They are quite pitiable people who have driven all the love from their lives and replaced it with hate.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Who Attacked Whom?

Since WWII, who has been invading and occupying whom? The USA attacked Korea, Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel took territory from Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The USSR attacked Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Afghanistan. Iraq attacked Iran. Canada attacked Afghanistan. Given that the USA and Israel attack, occupy and plunder considerably more often than the average nation, is it any wonder that other nations fear them? Given their past bad behaviour, obviously, they especially cannot be trusted with nukes. Yet they claim they should have them, that they desperately need them, but no one else should be entrusted with them.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Who Is Evil?

Evil is relative. Had Japan won WWII, we never would never have heard the end of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would have been played up even bigger than we play up the holocaust. We consider it evil for Iranians to have nukes but virtuous for America and Israel to have them. Environmentalists consider those that trash the environment evil and corporations consider the environmentalists evil for interfering with their profits. Keep relativity in mind when someone tries to convince you to kill off evil doers. An evil person is someone who tries to harm or thwart you. Usually they are motivated because they believe you are trying to harm or thwart them. You can see why increasing your opposition often results in them becoming even more evil.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Who May Have an Opinion On War?

Soldiers often claim that only those who have been in uniform are entitled to have an opinion on war. That is like saying only paedophiles are entitled to have an opinion on child molesting.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Who Votes For War?

What sort of person would vote for the wars in the middle east?

They are beyond contempt.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Who Wants War?

Americans were very excited about the Afghan and Iraq war in the opening days, but soon lost stomach for them. Yet the leaders kept the wars percolating for years and years even though the majority of people wanted the wars stopped. Did you ever wonder why a politician would do that? Who was pulling his chain and why?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Acquire Nukes?

Which nations are most likely to acquire nukes? Those which have been threatened with nuclear attack. Which nations have the most moral right to acquire nukes? Those which have been threatened with nuclear attack. Both Israel and the USA announced they planned a first strike nuclear attack on Iran. I would say that gives Iran even more right to nukes than either Israel or the USA.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why America Usually Loses

Consider the major wars the USA has participated in during the last 70 years: WWII, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though the USA spends more on the military than any other nation, it still managed to lose four of those six wars. Why? Because most of the time, it was in the wrong. It attacked other nations unprovoked. Defending the homeland inspires soldiers to fight. Thus the enemieswere inspired and the Americans were not.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Are Americans So Upset With Me?

I find it absolutely baffling that Americans get so angry with me for telling them to stop butchering children. What possible benefit do they get from this crime? Why is my disapproval so threatening to them? Do they get that angry when vegans or environmentalists tell them to stop eating cows? Or Christians tell them to stop having abortions? It is simply that I trigger the natural guilt they feel and they take it out on me instead of themselves? Is it that I break through their self-deception that what they are doing is OK?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Are Terrorists Willing to Sacrifice Their Lives?

Americans refuse to ask themselves the most basic question about terrorism — Why are terrorists willing to commit suicide to hurt Americans? Hint: America illegally attacked two nations unprovoked and occupied them both to this day in Roman-style resource wars. Combined with the 12 years of sanction bombings between the Gulf war and the Iraq war, Americans have killed millions of Muslims and routinely tortured everyone they could capture, even children. If you were a Muslim, would you not at least consider doing something drastic to try to stop the killing?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Attacking Iraq was not About Saddam

  1. A decade before the war, the Neocons were publicly planning an invasion of Iraq for the oil.
  2. The UN inspectors, Republican ambassador Joe Wilson, the Italians and other allies said Saddam had no nukes. They turned out to be right.
  3. Rumsfeld said he knew exactly where the nukes were cached. He didn’t.
  4. The evidence against Saddam came from an anonymous source, aka Curveball, an alcoholic, paid $40,000 a month to come up with evidence to support the war. The Americans never met him or cross checked his stories.
  5. Bush declined Saddam’s offer to surrender.
  6. Saddam was deposed within days. That did not end the occupation.
  7. Saddam was captured within months. That did not end the occupation.
  8. Obama announced the end of the war on the same day he arranged a huge auction to sell off Iraq’s oil to American and European oil companies.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Continue?

Many Americans are willing to keep the Afghan and Iraq wars going indefinitely because the military wants to. They don’t even request any reasons for it. This is a bit like asking a Ford dealer if you should buy a new car.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Dictators Favour Compulsory Military Service

Dictators have always been keen on compulsory military service. It gives the state a chance to brainwash the recruits into mindlessly surrendering to arbitrary authority. It makes for a docile population. Right wingers who distrust democracy favour it too for the same reason.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Did the USA Lose the Wars In Afghanistan and Iraq

The USA has been trying to subdue Afghanistan for 16 years. They have been trying to subdue Iraq for 14 years. The USA has spent over a trillion dollars, but can’t defeat two unarmed, penniless countries each less than a tenth their size. What gives? Granted the Russians could not defeat them either, but then the Afghans had American help. In their desperation to prevail, Americans resorted to routine torture, targeting children and women, rape, use of banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). Americans gleefully desecrated corpses, Qur’an s and mosques. The resistance countered with suicide missions. America is using extreme force to:

Ask yourself, how could it be possible, these tiny countries fought the best equipped, richest, most high tech, overwhelmingly larger invader to standstill?

I think the answer is motivation. The Americans cornered the Afghans and Iraqis and gave them no way out. They would sooner die that accept the American indignities. The American soldiers have no corresponding motivation. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq threaten American families in the slightest. The soldiers are bored and enjoy killing and torture, but to no purpose other than entertainment. The Afghans will never give up. The Americans have had more than enough already.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Do People Hate Me

If somebody hates you, most likely it is because something you have done, perhaps something you consider perfectly OK, but that they consider exceptionally wicked. The first question you should ask yourself is Did I do something to harm them? Americans have stolen natural resources and killed children by the millions. Either they don’t see that as harm or they close their eyes to it altogether. They are thus baffled that everyone does not love them and see the problem that millions of others hate them as a problem of mental illness or religious delusion.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Do They Hate Us?

One of the creepiest things about Americans is they can torture, rape, use banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). They can plunder. They can target children and old people. They can destroy the cropland and ecosystems. They can torment an occupied people with regulations that change hourly without notice and severely punish them for infractions. But Americans apparently can’t understand why their victims might hate them, or if they do have a glimmer they see that hate as a character flaw since hating Americans is always unjustified, on par with hating innocent babies. It is not that American are in total denial about their crimes, but they seem to imagine they are totally forgivable and always justified because they trust Americans always act with just motivation.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Do You Tolerate American Wars?

Hey asshole, yes, you the American. Why on earth do you tolerate the Afghan and Iraq wars? You know how much harm they have done. You know how much they cost. You know they have done no good at all. Why persist in the slaughter? Because you are a first class idiot, racist and jerk. You treat war like a football game. You fight purely out of pride. It bugs the hell out of you, that even with your trillions, you can squash little brown Muslims like bugs. You are a bully and a thug. You are a rotten excuse for a human. Psychologically, you are identical to the Germans who supported Hitler’s wars of aggression.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Does America Behave So Badly?

America contains a representative sample of all the world’s populations. So it is not some national flaw in the American character that accounts for the country’s abominable behaviour — invading and exploiting smaller countries in the manner of ancient Rome. It is the result of too much concentrated privilege and power. Power corrupts.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Enlist?

In WWII, the dreadful things soldiers did and saw were offset by the knowledge they were protecting their country.

In the case of the Afghan war, that was not so. Soldiers who signed up for a little adventure or bullying found themselves trapped in endless rounds of combat, unlike WWII where men were sensibly spelled off.

The problems with mental illness and suicide are much worse now. The men are deeply ashamed of what they did, but they are not permitted to admit it. Even the CBC maintains the fiction the Afghan war is legal. Harper maintains the lie that this brutal assault on Afghanistan is for their own good and won’t let any soldier say otherwise. He is like some twisted Savonarola.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Enlist?

Why would the US military put resources into such frivolity as Stars Earn Stripes?

They are trying to disguise the basic fact of the military — why people enlist.

They enlist because they like killing people, mostly civilians and children. They like torturing and sometimes raping with almost no chance of going to jail for it. They enlist to bully.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Escalation

Why would the Iraqis be upping their resistance to the American occupation now the Americans have announced they are leaving anyway? It is the last chance to get revenge on the bastards who tortured and killed their kids.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why God Favours the Defence

Countries that make a habit of invading others seem to ignore the factors that favour the defender:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Has Al Qaeda Lost Its Ability To Terrorise?

If Bush were correct when he claimed that Al Qaeda pulled off 2001-09-11, the most complex, brilliantly-organised terrorist attack in history, all without any inside help, why have all Al Qaeda attacks since been so pathetic in comparison and so embarrassingly incompetent? Reputedly, Al Qaeda is stronger and richer now from recruitment spurred by America’s illegal behaviours.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why I Hate Terrorists

I detest terrorists. It is not so much that they kill people, or cut their heads off, it is that they attack random people who did nothing to harm or even interfere with them. In particular, I detest killing non-combatants, particularly children. There is no military advantage to this. This is pure malice.

The embarrassing thing is America, Canada and Britain do it too, on a much larger scale. They refuse to acknowledge what they are doing is terrorism. They excuse their mass killing as collateral damage, but they know perfectly well when you drop bombs on residences, you will kill primarily children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Kill?

Why would someone like Johnson, Nixon, Bush, Harper or Obama condemn so many completely innocent people to fiery deaths? Surely the military provides them with footage of the destruction. Here are some possible answers:

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Let Only Americans Off The Hook?

Americans often phone or email me to angrily complain that I am unfairly anti-American. I wonder on what grounds I could justify looking the other way when America illegally attacks small third world countries, unprovoked, to steal their natural resources, uses banned weapons such as DU, white phosphorus, poison gas, napalm, cluster bombs (disguised as yellow food packets to attract and kill children) and bio-warfare (including destroying water, sewage and electric plants). They kill mainly civilians and children with their high tech war by remote control and routinely tortures P.O.W.s. Why should it be OK for Americans to commit these war crimes, but for no one else? What is the matter with Americans that they are so cowed or so corrupt or so deeply in denial that they permit their government to behave worse than Nazis?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Middle Easterners Hate Americans

Americans look so ridiculous when they claim Arab anti-Americanism is about hating/envying Americans for being free. Americans ignore the much more obvious motives:

Though it is hard for secular people in the west to understand, Muslims have been trained since birth to prefer living under the yoke of an Islamic theocracy to democratic freedom. They are similar to fundamentalist Christian cults who put up with horrible oppression willingly.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why No Exit Strategy

Americans had no exit strategy for Iraq because they had no intention of leaving until all the oil was gone.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Start Wars?

Countries start wars because they want something another country has. They will never admit this. Instead, they make up the silliest excuses imaginable for killing the other country’s children.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why Target Civilians?

You would think if you were having a war, your top priority would be to destroy your enemy’s capability to fight you back. This would help you win the war as fast as possible at minimum expense and loss of your troops. You would do things like blow up munitions plants, railways, pipelines, aircraft, factories and barracks. You might temper your destruction of something like a hydro electric plant on the grounds it would be too expensive to rebuild once you won the war. There would be no point in killing children, women or old people. But what do we see in actual wars? targeting civilians of all ages and sexes, torturing people, killing people with weapons designed to make people die slowly and painfully, rape, blowing up sewage systems so children die of disease… These labour-intensive activities are peripheral to winning the war and seemingly a waste of time and resources. Why then are they universal? One reason is soldiers demand them as perks. Soldiers are sadists and they demand the right to make people suffer up close and personal so the suffering can be relished. It is much the way rape and looting were standard perks for soldiers in ancient times. It is interesting to note that our closest cousins, the chimpanzees are also intelligently inventive in creating ways to torture.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why They Hate You. Don’ Play Dumb!

I heard many Americans moan Why do they hate us? I find it very hard to believe they don’t know. Perhaps they are just unbelievably ignorant. Hint. Consider a time when you wanted very badly to kill someone. Did you do it because you envied him? envied his freedom? Because he went to a different church from you? Not likely. You did it because he seriously wronged you or someone you love. It is possible he may have treated you with utter contempt. If someone asked you why you were so angry, you would likely be quite eager to explain.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why War?

A memorial day propagandist on NPR claimed the USA invaded Afghanistan to liberate the people and fight Islam. That was not the story George W. Bush told. And the real reason is yet another story. If the propagandist were telling he truth, the Afghans would have a democracy by now. The US won’t even fund its own schools. It certainly is not going to invest trillions to liberate people of a different nationality, language, race and faith, much less sacrifice the blood. Could you imagine any Republican signing off on such an altruistic expensive venture with so many higher priorities? The catch is, if the Afghans had a truly free election they would elect an Islamic theocracy. Instead, the USA foist a puppet dictator, Hamid Karzai on them, the world’s biggest heroin dealer and most corrupt politician on the planet.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why War?

Since WWII, it is never about freedom. For the soldiers, war as about sadism. For the backers, it is about profit.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why You Should Not Enlist

If you know someone planning to enlist in the military, you might be able to save them extreme misery by sending them to read my essay on why you should not enlist.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why You Will Learn Mandarin

China is using a patient, non-violent strategy to defeat the USA. China sells the USA manufactured goods below cost. This seduces the USA into letting its own manufacturing capacity wither. Further, China freely lends the USA trillions of dollars. This has tempted the USA to rack up a near run-away debt. At some point, the USA will not even be able to afford the interest, and no country, not even China, will lend it more money. At that point China will own the USA.

Right now, the USA is crowing about its booming economic recovery. The economy is doing no such thing. The administration just temporarily goosed it with massive borrowing and spending.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Why?

Almost all Americans remember an incident on 2004-03-31 when Iraqis killed some American soldiers, burned their bodies, dragged them behind a truck and strung them up on a bridge. Almost no Americans know why the Iraqis singled these particular soldiers out for this extreme demonstration of disapproval. They had raped and killed a 14 year old Iraqi girl.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Wild West Was Not So Fun

If you lived in the 1840s in California about 1 in 66 people were murdered each year. Today, even counting foreign wars that is down to about 1 in 27,000. That is the result of instituting a government-run criminal justice system.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70) The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Will the Real Saddam Please Stand Up

Remember when the US captured Saddam Hussein in his spider hole? There are a few things that don’t add up.

If that was not the real Saddam, where is the real Saddam now? Were the Americans well aware they had the wrong Saddam, but tried and executed him anyway for show?

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Wimps

The USA spends 80% of its money on the military. It has the biggest military in the world, bigger than nearly everyone else combined. They have military bases all over the world. They have enough nukes to wipe out the world many times over. They can kill anyone anywhere in the world with a drone piloted from Virginia. Yet every time even the tiniest terrorist organisation even waves a sword, Americans panic. They imagine they are in mortal danger and demand ever more increased spending. The USA is in far more danger of rot from within, ignoring the maintenance of infrastructure, health care, agriculture… than they are from threats from without.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Window Dressing

America spent over $1 trillion dollars killing people in Iraq, mostly civilians and of them, mostly children. They spent $20 million dollars (1/50,000 as much) to compensate the families of the civilians they killed. It appears to me the compensation is just window dressing for the folks back home.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Winnowing

The bright side of , is it winnowed out the nitwit zombies from the gene pool who went over the top to certain death for no plausible benefit simply because they were ordered to.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Wiping Out Islam

When I ask ordinary Americans why they are fighting in Afghanistan, they tell me all the things they don’t like about Islam and the need to kill them all, even the children. Given that nearly everyone in Afghanistan is a Muslim, are Americans seriously planning to kill everyone in the entire country to wipe out a competing religion? Do they imagine, with sufficient torture, a latter day crusade will convert all Afghans to Southern Baptist? This is all so bigoted and ignorant when the average American has not read even a single sentence of the Qur’an. Americans’ sole exposure to Islam is hate propaganda. Americans are behaving like the Spanish Inquisition, with their self-righteous cruelty and holy certainty.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Worst Perverts

The most revolting perverts on earth are the US soldiers who claim they are killing Iraqi civilians to defend the USA. They are such liars. They watched the USA launch the war, unprovoked, live on CNN by bombing the residential parts of Baghdad. They are fully aware Iraq has no planes, submarines, ships, tanks, missiles, nukes… The Iraqis must resort to home-made bombs and small arms to defend against the American occupation. The soldiers are fully aware Iraqis killed not a single American even when the USA killed 1.5 million Iraqis in the sanction bombings prior to the Iraq war. If the Iraqis would not retaliate against US civilians with even that provocation, what would it take? The soldiers know the USA auctioned of all of Iraq’s oil resources to American and European oil companies. They know the war is really about oil. Why then are they killing, raping and torturing? They surely would not risk their lives simply for oil. It is not the pay. It is not the travel. Iraq is the arm pit of the earth. What possible motive does that leave for the mayhem? — sadism.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Worst Type of Serial Murderer

Soldiers are the most evil type of serial murderer. They gain little from their murders but an adrenalin rush. They kill in numbers that dwarf a Gacey, Dahmer or Bundy. They cause maximum pain for others in return for minimal pleasure to themselves. That is even evil than the killer driven by uncontrollable urges to kill. Soldiers are miserable bastards whose sole goal in life is creating misery for others.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Would not Hurt A Fly

In a movie, if a Sicilian mother proclaimed that her boy Guido who worked for the Mafia would not hurt a fly, the audience would laugh. However, if an American mother (or wife) proclaimed her son joined the army to hand out candy to the children of Afghanistan, there not be even a titter, even though the assertion is equally unlikely.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

WWI vs The Iraq War

In WWI, the soldiers who volunteered were not that keen on fighting because of mustard gas, pointless battles over tiny plots of land with massive casualties, deadly flu epidemics, unsanitary conditions… The civilians back home, however, were gung ho, whipped to frenzy with newspaper pro-war propaganda.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, the soldiers who volunteered are quite keen on fighting. Their enemy has only primitive arms and they can enjoy torturing, killing, raping people of any age/gender with very little chance of being hurt or prosecuted themselves. The people back home are not as keen since they get stuck with the trillion dollars bills for the man toys and they don’t feel all that threatened by desert goat herders.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

WWII Deaths

In WWII, far more people died from starvation than from bullets.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

WWII not Finest Hour

When people claim that WWII was mankind’s finest hour or even that it was something to be proud of, I choke. It took deaths of 60 million people to deal with 3 monomaniacs who had maneuvered themselves into leadership. In a sensible world, it should not have taken any.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

W’s Story

Let’s review. President Bush told us that he had absolutely no idea that 2001-09-11 was coming, but within hours was 100% certain Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, was responsible. Later he announced that Mahmud Ahmad, the Pakistani ISI head of security, bankrolled it. He presented no evidence, presumably because he was concerned such information might be valuable to terrorists. He announced that Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, though a wicked man, had no ties to 2001-09-11. Then he invaded, not Saudi Arabia, not Pakistan, but Afghanistan and later Iraq and set up puppet governments. He explained that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were still staunch allies. Stephen Harper, on 2009-04-04 explained that Canada did not actually invade Afghanistan, but had been invited by the Afghan government to help with security. That reminds me of the sorts of lies the Soviet Union used to tell about its suppression of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Harper is vague. He could be claiming the Taliban invited Canada in, or that the Karzai puppet government was in power at the time of the invasion. Either claim is preposterous. To cap it off, the bulk of the publicly accessible evidence points to 2001-09-11 being an inside job. According to the head of German security, bin Laden and his motley band were nowhere near capable of pulling off such a dramatic feat. But the really astounding thing is most Americans see nothing at all odd in any of this.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Zombies are Nazi Metaphors

Zombie movies are thinly disguised Nazi concentration camp fantasies where guards slaughter defenceless, emaciated, ill prisoners. They are indicative of a pervasive sadism that has gripped the USA much as it gripped ancient Rome.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

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