WAR DESTROYS THE SOUL
You know things are bad when the New York Times publishes an article about an Israeli self-criticism group.
The article is about a group of Israeli soldiers who have decided to confess to the extremely inappropriate behaviour of Israel’s military forces in the Occupied Territories of The West Bank and Gaza. As the piece states, the Israeli Military is the heart and soul of the Jewish state.
According to the soldiers, some of whom I have met personally, the heart is broken and the soul is in pain. Chen Alon is one such Israeli army officer. After he made his decision to go public with his reports of how he and his colleagues had abused Palestinian civilians, he was discharged and sent to prison.
There’s not much substance to the article itself, but it does refer to a website maintained by the soldiers and that website speaks volumes.
Jim
regardless of whether armies are volunteer or conscripted, they invariably attract a disproportionate number of sociopathic hoodlums who enjoy whacking, bashing, raping and wrecking. Remember the US goons last year tormenting Iraqi kids with bottled water?
“The scum of the earth”, said the Duke of Wellington, about his own battle-fatigued men.
Likely that some of these Israeli soldiers have a lower threshold for such disgusting behaviour, but they are all participants.
Would a Canadian whistleblower-blog be much different?
Responsible journalism has to bite down on this cult of ultra-reverence for uniforms and the chumpified Hummer-culture it creates. Take a look around any department- store and see how much military-chic stuff is available.
We are sanctioning the corruption of coming generations, but Big Business and its pocket-politicians are just loving it.
Yes, I agree, L.A. In the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), a draft-style organization, there is extensive training in the state belief that there can be “purity in arms”, when those arms are used in responsible, defensive, and sacred ways.
The unfortunate truth is that despite the many course these Israeli soldiers take, the arms seem to remain pure only so long as they remain untouched by human hand.
Also- defecating on the private property of non-combatant, innocent civilians would appear to me to be somewhat degrading, insulting and provocative. It might even lead to the victim taking up his own purified weapon to strike back.
Apparently that is one of the ways in which war works (sic).
By the way, L.A, are you back from your southern sojourn…and if so did you learn anything? And if you did I trust that you will compose a post for this blog. Please.
Yes, Jim
Back hame to burst pipes and clapped-out furnace…… what makes us Canucks hardy and stoic…… especially after February’s bitchin’ blast.
Israel military:
Yes, if you are literally crapped on after your home, family and livelihood have been detroyed by bozos in uniform, a preferred option is to become what the Lead-monkey to the south calls “a terrorist”.
Such a victim of abuse might be motivated to give his/her abusers a taste of their own medicine.
That’s what my Da did for Sinn Feinn. He ended up in a Glasgow prison for it.
My visit to USA? Global Warming? Let me say the debate hasn’t started yet, but I may be wrong in presuming there will even be one, as the whole thing lurches into uncompromising paranoid ideology with no political process.
For Saint Al of Gore to have any credibility at all, he must demand an end to all war. Not just Iraq.
Eastern USA is a 2500-mile gridlock of gas-guzzlers, but why pick on them. So is the west. We’re all into it. Nobody’s going to give up any of that without a vicious fight.
Saint Al of Oscar’s crusade against satanic lyrics in rock-vinyl played backasswards in the eighties was noteworthy but he has no solutions to the greed and vanity of today’s world..