i have had ENOUGH!

i just saw a CBC documentary which featured footage from the front lines (i.e. taken by the soliders themselves) ~ iraq mostly, and then afghanistan. i just watched some american soldiers in iraq torture chickens, taunt iraqi children (who have no comprehension of english) by getting them to say 'i fuck donkeys,' and blow up a turkey! i find myself DISGUSTED ~ having NO REASON to maintain any shred of respect for any of these so-called soldiers. please do not lecture me. these fucking imbeciles do not deserve the title 'soldier.'

and don't make any stupid, lame excuses for such brutish behaviour that makes me feel ashamed of my membership in the human race. many, many humans bear witness to unspeakable horrors, death, carnage, suffering ... and these people do not make children utter pornographic statements, or torture and brutally kill innocent animals! we each take responsibility for our own actions, attitude and behaviour. and we lackc that capacity, then we belong locked up in a psychiatric institute. simple as that. no one will convince me otherwise.

war sucks. when will anyone learn its simply NOT the answer. and it never has provided the answer. one does not simply pull out a bigger gun or a bigger stick with which to beat the opponent who pisses us off, or strikes some humility into us by reminding us we do not own or control the fucking universe! guess what? that's called bullying. its resulted in columbine, taber, and there have been other bully-related shootings, i'm sure. unless you've been in a coma for several years, you know of what i speak. how can we, in all honesty or seriousness, tell our children violence solves no problems, all-the-while we systematically engage in some fucked up politically shrouded religious war?

i have had ENOUGH of this disgusting hypocrisy! am i alone, here?

here's a novel thought. how about we just drop that mythical notion that any religion anywhere in the world represents pure evil? that means lose the islam-bashing. its lame. its old. its no different than anti-semitism, or hatred of people with coloured skin. IMHO. before you protest loudly ... ask yourself, have you ever endured feeling the taunts and hatred of another, simply based on your ethnicity or skin colour? i'm guessing most of the loudest protesters have no idea what that feels like.

that's all. just wanted to colour this page with a little 'brown crayon' ... (that's what they called me when i was a kid). coz ... in the end ... we all hold membership to that same certain party ~ HUMANITY. remember that?


ps. liars! watch the video ... dubya's watch, indeed did get lifted from his wrist. undeniable. no, dubya did not put it in his pocket! if you expect anyone to believe that, then i'm guessing those are the ones who are still waiting to see where those WMDs might have gotten stashed by saddam. HA HA.

its official. i feel embarrassed to call myself human. and i feel that way at least once daily. and ... i have this growing urge to somehow apologize to the earth and the other (i.e. non-human) species that occupy said earth for the carnage, stupidity and downright brutality my own species has and continues to inflict upon this planet ... and universe, even (hey, we're even littering space, now).

let's face it ... WE SUCK. what shall we do about it? anything? or just pretend we're on the titanic ... and do sweet fuck all?

any thoughts?

read my lips, you morons!

split up iraq

it worked for the former yugoslavia ... didn't it?

and if you held a seance
to contact sir winston churchill
who, incidently formed iraq in the first place,
he would likely tell you the same thing
so ... because i know you're slow on the uptake
i will repeat

SPLIT UP IRAQ!

a major achievement for democracy

sadam's guilty verdict. does anyone else out there appreciate the hollow irony of a death by hanging sentence serving as a major achievement for democracy in a country riddled with violence? what does bush-43 mean by democracy? he called iraq a democractic country. really? that's what we're calling it these days, when 50 or 60 citizens get brutally murdered? when ordinary citizens cannot really trust the police force, because of a raging infiltration by the militias?

ok. cause i thought its something else ... like CIVIL WAR! lets take a few steps back here. and ask ourselves. can democracy exist there? i mean, really? think ... think ... think ... before answering. i really believe its so complex - politics and society in that the middle east. the entire historical and present-day context we must consider when speaking of this region. the waters seem muddied indeed. what impact would leaving iraq have upon iran? upon gaza? upon israel? and what of staying? does iraq remain one homgenous society? or does it become a confederation of smaller states/cantons/provinces?

and we must always consider that the cultures of the middle east differ markedly from our own. i really believe in the mutual exclusivity, for societies, of fundamentally extreme religious beliefs and democratic principles of social inequality. i venture the assertion that societies such as iraq and iran differ from western societies in that they find themselves hundreds of years behind, in terms of social evolution. so, that said. can that region really become democratic, in the western sense of the word?

what constitutes democracy in any society? did we think south africa had democracy when apartheid remained in effect? likely not. so ... why does removing sadam and staging some elections create a democracy? did the democracies of canada and the usa evolve to their current states in 5 years? NOPE. so ... what's going in iraq? good question. but i doubt any of it constitutes a major achievement for democracy.

without a national identity: iraq

in march of 1933, feisel I, then british-assigned monarch of iraq, had this to say about his country:

'There is still -- and I say this with a heart full of sorrow -- no Iraqi people but an unimaginable mass of human beings, devoid of any patriotic idea, imbued with religious traditions and absurdities, connected by no common tie, giving ear to evil, prone to anarchy and perpetually ready to rise against any government whatever.'

in 1959 historian hanna batutu wrote the following of iraq:

"For four days and four nights Kurds and Yezidis stood against Arabs; Assyrian and Aramaean Christians against Arab Muslims; the Arab tribe of Albu Mutaiwat against the Arab tribe of Shammar; the Kurdish tribe of al-Gargariyyah against Arab Albu Mutaiwat; the peasants of Mosul country against their landlords; the soldiers of the Fifth Brigade against their officers; the periphery of the city of Mosul against its centre; the plebeians of the Arab quarters of al-Makkawi and Wadi Hajar against the aristocrats of the Arab quarter of ad-Dawwash; and with the quarter of Bab al-Baid, the family of al-Rajabu against its traditional rivals, the Aghawat."

so ... if we read these thoughts correctly, we begin to see the tribal forces at play in the region known as iraq. did you know, dear reader, of such a tangled and complex historical context in iraq? did you really think it would simply take removal of saddam hussein to "correct" the region? how naive, indeed! and did the region need correcting at all, any more than the usa needed 'correcting' during its own civil war? any more than canada required 'correcting' during the FLQ crisis?

and ... dear reader, what do you think happened to this region in the post WWI period, when victors of the great war carved up the lands of the defeated ottomans? well, exploitive distribution, of course. with western interests in mind. does it surprise you to know that little regard was given to involving the iraqi people in the formation of their own fate?

its interesting, isn't it? learning that colonial interest in mosul-kirkuk did not surface until AFTER discovery of oil in this region? and that oil - and western dependence on same - motivated the brits' invasion and subsequent occupation of iraq during WWII?

historical context. sociologic context. tribal underpinnings of the populace. when one considers iraq, one MUST consider context. and so, that means ... what? simply, that one must consider the current uprising of insurgents in its context. the region and peoples of iraq have suffered occupation and domination for very much of the past 748 years. knowing this, king feisel I's remarks, made 73 years ago seems so very fitting today.

and ... it leads me to ask. what does america think its doing, in iraq? and why are we, the world, so surprised at the reaction of iraqis?

and, more importantly. this begs me to ask. through what process does a mass of humans become a nation of people? can external and culturally alien entities impose such a process on the population of iraq? how much of a nation's development and social progress must simply originate from WITHIN? and what can the west do to assist? and that line separating domination from guidance? do we know where it exists? do we even know it exists, at all?